


Ma'at

by Isobel_Morgan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, OC Companion, Technically a multi-Doctor story, The Doctor meets her past selves, Yes another trial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isobel_Morgan/pseuds/Isobel_Morgan
Summary: A holiday in 1920's England is rudely interrupted when the sinister cult of Ma'at abduct the Doctor and her friend. They put the Doctor on trial once more, insisting that she examine her past lives, face-to-face, to decide whether she meets their definition of a balanced life, or if she has done more harm than good.But something else is going on behind the scenes, with devastating consequences.(Becomes a sort-of multi-Doctor fic by Ch.2)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an alternative Season 13, following on from my previous stories 'Anamnesis' and 'Ipseity'. Brief synopsis for those who haven't read them - no longer travelling with the 'fam', the Thirteenth Doctor tried to regain her lost memories. She failed but made a new friend, Serene, an orphan raised within the Cerebral Order (a sort of combination of a university and a monastic order). On their first meeting, Serene accidentally absorbed some of the Doctor's memories through her memory recall device, and although the Doctor managed to remove most of them, some remained. After travelling and having adventures for a while, they met Missy, who 'gifted' Serene some of Missy's own memories, to further complicate matters. Serene then discovered the truth of her own past, while the Doctor has accepted that she may never get to do that.

It was a glorious sunny day, just perfect for a picnic on the lawn of a once-grand, now rather tumbledown house in 1920's England. Sandwiches done with, the Doctor was playing with the commune's children, chasing them around the gardens and teaching them to sword-fight with the fencing foils the eldest boy had found in his father's study.

Kicking off her shoes, the Doctor faced him, raising her sword in front of her face in salute before assuming a fencing position.

"En guarde!" she cried.

"Avast!" John, the ten-year-old, shouted back, unable to separate sword fighting and pirates in his head, despite the efforts of many.

"You will never defeat me, Bluebeard!"

"I don't have a blue beard! My hair's pink, won't that do?" the Doctor called back, but John lunged forward, aiming to hit the Doctor in the chest with his (thankfully tipped) foil. She parried, gently, and aimed her own sword carefully, tapping it against his upper arm.

"First point to me. Remember what I told you; keep your sword up, and don't leave yourself open to attack."

Again, the thought rose at the back of her head that it was likely this child would end up seeing combat in his life, when the Second World War broke out in a decade or so's time, although it was unlikely to involve much sword fighting.

_'Not much you can do about that,'_ she thought. _'Let him have his fun now. The future's a long way off.'_

They fenced, play-fighting their way across the lawn, cheered on by the other children. Eventually, the Doctor let John win, his foil scoring a direct hit to her cream silk blouse and she fell to her knees, pretending to be skewered by his blade.

"Curses! You have defeated me, Pirate John!"

She toppled over, playing dead until the children all leapt on her, shrieking in excitement. The Doctor wrestled with them until they got distracted by the appearance of cake from the kitchen and ran off.

She flopped onto her back, staring up at the cloudless blue sky while she got her breath back. It was turning out to be a lovely little holiday.

She rolled back over onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows and looking across the lawn to her best friend. Serene was attempting to paint the flowers in the border, supervised by Al. He and his wife, Sylvie, had taken Serene, and her burgeoning interest in art, under their wing, encouraging and guiding her. There was always something going on in the commune, so the Doctor had been happy to leave her friend to her new hobby for the few days they'd been staying.

Most nights there was a party of some sort, or at least music and dancing, and they'd both stayed up late, talking about all manner of things with the various other people who'd been drawn to the artist commune. Serene had taken a while to get up to speed with what she was supposed to know about 1920's Britain, but her golden skin tone meant everyone assumed she was from 'abroad' and they didn't mind too much when she said impossible, nonsensical things.

_'Would it matter if I told them I was an alien?' Serene had asked. 'What exactly would they do if I did?'_

_'I wouldn't risk it,' the Doctor had replied. 'Some people are fine with it, but it could cause all sorts of problems. Best just to say you're not from round here, and leave it at that.'_

_'Don't you ever get tired of having to lie to people?'_

_The Doctor shrugged._

_'Not really. I'm not too keen on the shunning - or worse - when people take against me for being an alien. And I've spent so much time here, it feels more like home than anywhere else.'_

As the Doctor watched, Al put his hand on the small of Serene's back, the other guiding her paintbrush as she tried to replicate the irises in the border, the same purple hue as her flapper-style dress. It was a little out of date, but the occupants of the commune were all eccentric dressers and so no-one cared.

The Doctor was rather pleased with the clothes she'd chosen for this trip. Not one for dresses, she and Serene had combed the wardrobe until they found a pair of navy blue, wide leg, high waisted trousers, symmetrical rows of silver buttons down the front, close enough to the fashions of the period. The blouse was a bit less practical than the t-shirts she normally chose, but sometimes it was fun to dress up.

She remembered her lost friend Bill, using the word 'femme' to describe how she felt different in a dress than she did in other outfits, what that meant to her. With the feeling of plunging into uncharted waters, but also that is was about time she tried something different, the Doctor made an attempt at shingling her dyed rose-gold hair, consulting historical sources on Serene's recall device, and put on lipstick. It was a bizarre feeling, not the first time she'd ever worn make-up, even when she'd been male, but she kept forgetting it was there and almost smudging it.

Serene had found a way to put her long black hair up in 1920's style, wrapping it around a headband that matched her dress, and spent ages trying to perfect eyeliner. Now they'd been staying a few days, they swapped borrowed pyjamas for their 'party clothes' each morning and no-one cared, often doing the same themselves.

The iris completed, Al didn't remove his hand from Serene's back, now moving in a gentle caress that Serene didn't seem to mind at all.

_'Uh oh,'_ the Doctor thought. _'We haven't had a 'facts of life' talk. Hope she knows the - you know. Birds and the bees. She might be an adult, but I don't know how much emphasis there was on learning about relationships and that where she grew up.'_

In the months - or was it years now? More than a year, at least - that they'd been travelling together, this was the first time this had come up. Serene had never shown any interest, romantic or otherwise, in anyone they'd met, and the Doctor had assumed that maybe that was who she was. But now that she thought about it, Serene and Alastair had spent a lot of time together, and not just painting. Maybe it was just that there had never been chemistry with anyone else they met before? Al was married, but the commune were pretty relaxed about things like that, conducting love affairs whenever the desire took them.

_'Well… it might not be such a bad thing,'_ the Doctor thought, chewing on a long stem of grass. ' _Wouldn't be the first of my friends to fall in love. And it's not like they all leave me when they get hitched anymore. If she wanted to stay, I could drop in and visit now and then. Nice place for a holiday. Unless they wanted to come with. Be nice to have a Team in the TARDIS again. No need to panic.'_

As if on cue, Sylvie came sweeping out through the wedged-open French windows and down the stone steps, resplendent in her fringed silk wrap and turban, the very essence of bohemian chic. She examined Serene's painting, offering her own advice, not at all concerned by the young woman's closeness to her husband, placing her own hand on Serene's back, over Al's hand. The Doctor immediately forgot her last thought not to panic.

_'Could, um, get a bit complicated though. I'm out my depth here. Let's hope it's only painting Serene's interested in.'_

The Doctor got up, joining the children at the cake. The house, while large, wasn't the fancy kind, with servants and banquets, and everyone pitched in, helping with the slapdash cleaning, cooking, gardening or caring for the children, whenever they weren't consumed with painting, poetry or throwing parties. There must be money somewhere, funding all this, but no-one seemed rich, or if they were, they didn't laud it over the others.

_'Art's a great leveller, 'specially with these Bohemian types,'_ the Doctor thought.

The cake was good, a Victoria sponge with plum jam, the fruit harvested from the overgrown orchard at the end of the rambling garden, and there was elderflower fizz too, also homemade.

_'A little idyll, this place. The rest of the planet might not be all that great right now, but this house, this garden. Perfect.'_

As with all good things, it was too good to last.

A loud cracking noise, harsh against the rural quiet of the afternoon, made the Doctor turn and look. On the lawn, by the edge of the orchard, there was a strange shimmering light, surreal against the gardens. Then three more cracks, and from the light opened three small portals and the Doctor's senses flared.

"Everyone in the house!" she yelled, pushing the nearest children into the arms of any available adult, starting to herd people away from the portals.

Might be nothing. Might be friendly. But she couldn't take that risk, not with these people. Not with the children.

Serene appeared at her side.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Don't recognise them. Make sure everyone gets inside."

The Doctor approached the portals, slowly, fencing foil back in one hand. She took the sonic from her trouser pocket with the other and started to scan the portals, trusting that the commune was moving away from potential danger as Serene rounded up the remaining artists, ushering them indoors.

_'Not seen anything like these before. And I can't read what's on the other side either, which is worrying.'_

She stopped about ten feet away.

"Hello?" she called. "Is someone there? Don't want to get off on the wrong foot, but if you're planning on coming through, best be warned that this is a protected planet. As in, I'm protecting it and right now I'm standing between you and it."

For a moment, nothing.

Then the portals began to ripple, and shapes emerged. Three snouts, long and sharp-toothed, followed by the rest of the huge dog-like creatures.

Behind them, holding the hounds on short leashes, stepped three humanoids, tall and slender-limbed, dressed in black except for the falcon-head masks covering their entire heads, reaching down to sit on their shoulders.

The Doctor backed up a little.

"That's… new. Not entirely, I recognise some of the symbolism, I think…"

"Doctor?" Serene called from the terrace, closing and locking the French windows behind her.

"What's going on?"

"I'm not sure. Stay back."

The collars on the bloodhounds lit up, glowing blue with energy, as a voice came from the lead handler.

"Time travellers, you will stand down and be taken! You are accused, and will be removed from here and judged."

_'Oh, that doesn't sound good at all,'_ the Doctor thought, her mind flashing to the many times in her life she'd been arrested, tried, imprisoned. She risked a glance over her shoulder, saw Serene had stayed close to the house.

"Okay, whatever this is, it doesn't have to involve my friend," she replied. "It's me you're after, I'm the time traveller. Whatever it is I'm accused of, I'm sure we can work it out. No-one needs to get hurt, or be taken anywhere."

But the dog handlers didn't seem to heed her words at all, all three reaching down in sync to detach the leads from the glowing collars.

"You will stand down and be taken," the lead handler repeated.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, backing further away. "Tell me what this is about, and maybe we can sort it here-"

"You will not be hurt if you offer no resistance," the falcon headed creature cut her off. "But judgement must take place."

The Doctor looked back at Serene again, who'd moved closer.

"Get to the TARDIS. You should be safe in there."

"What about the others?" her friend asked, worried for the commune.

"If it's us they're after, everyone else should be okay. Best if we run now."

Serene stared wide-eyed at the alien dogs, snarling at the two time travellers.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Whatever happens, we need to make sure they don't get in the house."

"Agreed. Okay."

They ran.

Serene ran along the back of the house, aiming for the TARDIS, parked in the corner of the formal gardens behind a water feature, while the Doctor ran into the orchard, weaving her way in and out of ancient, gnarled apple and plum trees.

_'Wish I'd kept my shoes on now,'_ she thought, but at least she wasn't wearing heels like Serene was. They weren't towering stilettos like the ones River favoured, the ones Serene had borrowed for Carnivalé in Venice, but even the low heeled t-strap shoes she'd found in the TARDIS wardrobe were made for dancing, rather than running.

The Doctor could hear her pursuer galloping behind her - she couldn't outrun a bloodhound, but she could lead it away from the house, the innocent people inside it. Not knowing who these hunters were, there was no way to know if they would endanger the commune, or if they really were only interested in her. And she hoped they would focus on her, and that Serene might be able to get to safety.

She noticed that some of the tree branches were cracked, hanging down but not yet fallen, and she sent a wave of energy from the sonic over her shoulder as she ran past. A loud crash and a startled yelp told her that the branch had fallen on target, which should give her a little more time.

_'And of course, the real question is, where do they want to take us, and why?'_ she thought, zigzagging her way through the orchard. _'Judged? What do they think I've done? Hope it's not like last time, with the Judoon. I can't do prison again…'_

But as she cut around a particularly wide apple tree, she skidded to a halt as she realised she had not one, but two pursuers. The one behind had been temporarily held up by the fallen branch, but this one was unencumbered, and it stalked her, snarling.

The Doctor raised the fencing sword in her right hand, pulling the tip off the sharp end.

"Now, I don't wanna hurt you, but be fair, you started it."

The beast didn't seem to understand what she was saying, tensing itself to spring, so the Doctor leapt forward, aiming the foil at its collar. The way it was glowing suggested energy, maybe a control collar? If she could break it…

But the hound moved incredibly fast, and it bit the foil in two.

The Doctor held the broken stump of the sword up before her disbelieving eyes.

"Whoops."

She threw the remains of the sword at the hound, turned and fled. She tried to use the sonic, to try and find the energy signature of the collar, to interrupt it somehow, but it was proving difficult to focus on that while running through an orchard full of twisty trees and raised roots, pursued by a slavering bloodhound. No, two bloodhounds. The first had recovered and joined in the chase.

_'Think, Doctor, think. Can you lead them back around, make it to the TARDIS without getting too near the house? They might leave the commune alone if we're not here anymore.'_

But all of a sudden, that became a moot point.

"Avast!" cried a child's voice, and to the Doctor's horror, young John appeared out of the trees, fencing sword in hand.

"I come to fight alongside you, crewmate!" the boy called out to her, and the Doctor stopped running. Shoving the sonic into her pocket, she grabbed the boy, trying to put herself between him and the two bloodhounds.

"Stay behind me, John. This is really dangerous; you should've stayed in the house!"

She pulled them both behind a wide tree as the hounds slowly advanced, snarling.

_'Better think fast, Doctor.'_

Turning, she boosted John up into the air, toward the tree.

"Climb. As high as you can, and don't come down until it's safe."

"But-"

"Do it!"

The Doctor's tone was a command, and the child obeyed, dropping his sword and grabbing the nearest branch, beginning to climb.

The Doctor faced the circling hounds, her back to the tree.

"There's no need to harm him. He's innocent."

The blue light of the dogs' collars intensified and there was a fizz of energy in the air.

_'Teleport… okay then. Let's do this.'_

"I stand down," she said, aloud. "Let judgement take place."

The closest bloodhound leapt, there was an almighty flash, and the Doctor vanished.

The first hound disappeared with her. The second sniffed the air.

It looked up at John, hiding high in the tree, then turned dismissively away, after the other fugitive.

* * *

To her immense surprise, Serene had made it to the TARDIS.

Either the hounds weren't as fast as she'd thought they would be, or it was letting her run, for whatever reason. She'd gotten used to walking and dancing in the 1920s shoes, but they, and the flapper dress, were not the most practical things for running away from a monster.

"Should've learnt this lesson…"

She shut the TARDIS doors, backing away from them.

"I really hope they can't get in," she said to herself. "The Doctor said nothing could, right?"

Serene picked up the wrist part of her recall device from the console, buckling it back on. She couldn't wear it on 1920s Earth without raising suspicion, but now she might need it, if the Doctor's assertion that she was safe in the ship proved a little too optimistic.

Reaching the door from the console room to the rest of the ship, she looked back at the exterior doors. They looked solid, but there was a strange noise outside. Serene's already racing heart leapt as a blue glow began to envelop the doors. Then there was a bright flash, and the bloodhound began to push its way through the doors. Not pushing them open, but moving through the closed doors, phasing through solid matter in an utterly impossible manner.

There was another unexpected sound, a bell tolling somewhere in the TARDIS but Serene barely noticed, frozen wide-eyed in horror.

Then she ran.

Serene slammed the interior doors behind her; even if it didn't stop it, the doors might slow the creature down enough that she could lose it in the endless corridors of the TARDIS.

That gave her a thought.

Running as hard as she could, Serene activated her device, connecting with the TARDIS databanks and searching for a specific location. She knew the TARDIS didn't usually allow weapons to be used inside, (not that she had a weapon), so maybe instead she could trap the pursuing hound.

_'Please, please, please,'_ she thought, wondering if the TARDIS herself could hear her, connect with her telepathically and help her. _'It's the only thing I can think of that might hold it.'_

She kept running.

The location of what she was looking for came up on the display, as did a route of how to reach it, which was closer than she expected. Maybe the TARDIS really could hear her, and had moved it closer to her? But she could hear the creature now, following her, moving at speed, and she threw everything she had into running faster, until she reached her destination, breathless and exhausted.

There wasn't supposed to be a way in; this whole part of the ship was supposed to be sealed off, so no-one could accidentally wander in and get stuck… and so nothing from inside could get out. Serene didn't want that to happen, but she had to risk it, had to try. She couldn't let the bloodhound catch her, not without knowing what it would do if it did.

But there was a door, and Serene stood right in front of it, grasping the handle behind her back. She turned it, feeling it open a fraction, and she had to hold her nerve. The creature was close now, she could see it approach, and was it her imagination, or was something starting to push against the door from inside, trying to get out?

She was panting too hard to attempt a calming breath, so she reached instead for a mantra, a chant, something familiar to run through her head instead of blind panic as the bloodhound got nearer. She saw it tense, ready to spring.

_'Here goes…'_

Serene leapt to the side, pulling the door open behind her and ducking behind it as the creature leapt forward. Unable to change its trajectory in time, its leap took it right through the door, into the waiting arms of the ravenous Venandi creeper. It wrapped its tendrils around the startled animal and pulled it through into the impossible, multidimensional trap, built by the Keepers of the ruined Isenal city, Laniyah.

Serene slammed the door shut as fast as she could, before anything else could escape from the Möbius-loop-turned-Klein-bottle, particularly the three Scyava shadow monsters that were also trapped inside. Serene still didn't understand how the TARDIS had rescued her and the Doctor from that trap, accidentally sprung while exploring the city, by invitation of Professor River Song, although they'd ended up in a different time period to that of the Doctor's wife.

The ship had managed to bring the whole trap inside itself, removing the Doctor and Serene to the console room as it did, and for that, and what it had just done, Serene was eternally grateful.

She moved away from the door, which immediately vanished. Wherever the bloodhound was now, it didn't look like it was coming back.

Leaning on the wall, Serene took a moment to get her breath back. Maybe she could go back outside, see if the Doctor was okay or if she needed rescuing. They might not be able to pull off the same trick twice, but there was bound to be something else inside this vast, eternal ship that could help?

A little recovered, she set off back toward the console room. The interior door was almost hanging off its hinges, from where the bloodhound had fought its way through. Serene climbed over it carefully and went over to the console.

Her back to the exterior doors and her attention on trying to activate the scanner, she didn't notice the blue glow envelope the doors again as the third bloodhound pushed its way in. The Cloister Bell began to ring again- that had been the strange noise when the first hound forced its way in.

Alarmed, Serene span around, but it was too late. The creature was inside, and it was taking no chances.

The blue light of the dog's collar flaring, there was a fizz of energy in the air as it sprang forward, and in a flash, both the bloodhound and Serene vanished.

* * *

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise isn't mine, etc.

Starting from the next chapter, the trial begins, (hopefully not like any previous trials in Doctor Who, although I will make reference to those) and this becomes a kind of multi-Doctor story, both Classic and New Who, where the Thirteenth meets her previous selves and recalls all the things they've done.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a pinterest board for this story, including the costume inspiration for both the Doctor and Serene's 1920's outfits, and some of the iconography for this chapter but can't get the direct link to post properly.
> 
> https://www.pinterest.co.uk/isobelmorgan7/maat/
> 
> If you're interested, the account is isobelmorgan7 and the board is called "Ma'at"

The hall was vast. Not just big, but immense, designed to intimidate and as first impressions went, it was not reassuring. The Doctor was still unconscious, which worried Serene. She had no idea how long she herself had been out - she remembered the bloodhound forcing its way into the TARDIS and springing at her, then nothing until she woke up on the polished marble floor of this hall.

She and the Doctor both wore a sort of manacles around their wrists, lightweight but with the same blue energy glow of the bloodhounds' collars, which made her suspect they wouldn't be at all easy to get out of, if they managed to escape. And of course, she had no idea where they were. They'd been teleported here, but how far were they from Earth? And when were they? This technology was far in advance of anything she'd seen on 1920s Earth, so did whoever had taken them have access to time travel too? They hadn't referred to her and the Doctor by name, simply as time travellers, though, which was an added complication.

Trying to stave off panic, (though being abducted wasn't a new experience for either of them) Serene looked around. The Hall was in semi-darkness, lit by glowing golden lights on the looming pillars that were laid out regularly along the length of the room, and at the far end was a raised dais laid out with five throne-like chairs.

Above that was an enormous stained glass window depicting various figures, some animal-headed, some humanoid, flanked by a golden Sun to the right, a silver Moon on the left. The centre of the window was a giant set of scales, a feather on one side and on the other, in perfect balance, a heart.

All her life, Serene had been fascinated by mythology of different races, peoples, cultures. Not then knowing her own background, she'd read around widely, exploring the different ways that people sought to understand the universe. Since she started travelling with the Doctor, she'd gotten to see some of these in real life, and once she'd overcome her reticence of returning to Earth - couldn't hold having been nearly burned as a witch against a whole planet forever - she'd extended her interests into some of their cultures too, had read about them when visiting the Library. And, it seemed, she wasn't the only one. It was unlikely they were still on Earth, what with the hunters having arrived through inter-dimensional portals, so what to make of the Ancient Egyptian influences here?

The soft golden lights brightened, and Serene could see the guards flanking the hall, all with the same falcon headpieces as those who'd come after them. In Egypt, he was a god called Horus, or sometimes Heru-ur, the son of truth. If that was the symbolism adopted here, then their captors' earlier declaration that 'judgement must take place' made a little more sense. But judged how? And to what end?

She checked the Doctor again. Her friend was still breathing, and her double pulse was steady, but she showed no sign of waking up. So…

Serene got up. The Horus-guards moved as one into a different stance, stamping their booted feet, no doubt to remind Serene she was a prisoner, and it was probably safe to assume they were all armed too.

From the doors at the far end of the hall, more figures began to appear, climbing onto the dais and seating themselves on the thrones. They too wore headdresses, and although they were backlit, appearing almost as silhouettes, Serene could see that their clothes were gorgeous robes, in comparison with the uniform black of the Horus guards.

The five masked figures on the dais stared down at her silently, and Serene moved to stand closer to the Doctor, a protective stance over her unconscious friend, hoping fervently that she'd wake up soon.

"They said we were accused and would be judged," she said to them, trying her best to steady her voice, to project with confidence. "What are we accused of? And who stands in judgement over us?"

"All will become clear," said the one in the centre. Her throne was a little higher than the others, and her headdress, rather than being an animal head, was a humanoid face, a single tall feather tucked upright into her headband, over long black braided hair. The light on her increased and Serene could see that her robes gave the appearance of feathered wings, blue-green and gold, wrapped around her. Something pinged in her memory - her actual memory, not the weird remainders of the Doctor's memories that she'd absorbed, minutes after they'd met for the first time. But she couldn't exactly consult her recall device then and there; perhaps the Doctor's gentle insinuations that she was reliant on it wasn't entirely without merit.

"Judgement is required of all of living things," the woman on the dais continued. "There must be balance, harmony, order in the universe. We stand against _isfet_ , against injustice, chaos and violence."

Serene's memory finally supplied the answer.

"You are _Ma'at._ "

The woman's face was hidden behind the painted mask, but her voice sounded pleased.

"You know of us?"

"I've studied the Earth culture you seem to be taking your cues from," Serene replied. "The real question is, who is it you think we are?"

A sudden wild impulse rushed through Serene to follow her question with exactly who she and the Doctor were - a Time Lady, and a former President of Gallifrey at that, and the rightful Regnant of the Zinariyan Alliance. But no. That wasn't how Serene would identify herself, not ever. And what did they know, or think they knew, about the Doctor?

"If you know something of our order," Ma'at said. "Then it should not be a surprise that you and the woman you travel with have drawn our attention. You stand in the Hall of Two Truths, and there must be judgement."

The lights on the other figures shifted from behind them to above, and finally Serene could see them properly. The two either side of the Ma'at representative were a male and female pair, both robed in shining white. The man, to the left, wore as green-skinned mask and a tall crown, silver like the moon, with similar feathers. The woman on Ma'at's right was golden-skinned like Serene herself, and she wore a crown of a golden sun disk, set between the horns of a cow. Osiris and Isis, it appeared.

To the left of Osiris was a male figure with the head of a jackal, or a wolf - Anubis - and to Isis' right, a man with a bird head, an ibis - Thoth. Though whether or not they had the names of the deities they were inspired by wasn't important just then. What Serene really wanted to know was what judgement would mean for her and the Doctor - she hadn't had the opportunity to study the vast, millennia-long Ancient Egyptian culture in real detail but traditionally, such judgement was reserved until after death.

"By what authority?" Serene demanded. The light on her manacles flared along with her emotional response - anger and fear. "You abducted us from a protected planet, one that hadn't even developed space travel in the time we were visiting-"

"Your words condemn yourself," Ma'at cut her off, her tone sharp. "You think it acceptable for you to visit a place that doesn't know alien life exists, but you seek to judge us for doing the same?"

"We did no harm!" Serene snapped back, failing to live up to her name. "You were the one who sent bloodhounds after us, endangered innocents, _children_ -"

Ma'at cut her off again.

"Whether you have done harm is precisely what will be decided here."

The Anubis and Thoth figures got up, stepping down from the dais and advancing on the Doctor and Serene, flanked by the Horus guards. Serene wanted to run, but even if there'd been any chance of escape, she couldn't leave the Doctor behind.

"Don't hurt her!"

"Your concern for your friend is noted. You are close?"

Serene didn't answer, trying not to resist as the guards seized her, lifting the still unconscious Doctor from the floor.

"She stood down to protect an innocent she believed to be in danger. That will also be noted. You, however, caused the loss of one of the hound units, and that must also be taken into account."

Now Serene did begin to struggle, though it did no good. More Horus guards pushed two large glass cases out from behind the pillars. Inside each case were some bewildering pieces of technology, connected to a chair. The two women were pushed or carried inside, their manacles connecting with the chairs to restrain them. Then they were linked up to the machinery, electrodes attached to their temples.

"Judgement will take place," Ma'at announced, from her place on her throne.

Beside her, Isis and Osiris stood, raising the symbols they held - her an ankh, the symbol of life, and he the shepherd's crook of kingship and the thresher's flail. Thoth and Anubis stood before the boxes, watching the prisoners carefully.

The part of Serene's brain that wouldn't shut up wondered what aspects of the deities would be seen here. What had created this order? To go about the universe abducting people, seemingly at random, and putting them on trial, using the imagery of a long-abandoned Earth culture? Not the strangest thing she'd encountered since travelling with the Doctor, but inexplicable nonetheless.

The Horus guards closed the glass boxes and withdrew. Thoth and Anubis raised their hands slowly from their sides to shoulder height, arms bent, palms upright and as they did so, the machinery whirred into action. On the wall of each box, between the women and their captors, appeared a projection of the weighing scales depicted in the window.

Anubis closed his gloved hands into fists, and there was a flare of terrible pain in Serene's chest. She strained to turn and see if the Doctor was all right or if the same was happening to her. Still unconscious, her friend's body jerked, and Serene saw a second projection, from the inside of the case. As if coming from the Doctor herself, two lights shone, projecting images of both her hearts onto one side of her set of scales and Serene realised the same was happening to her, her own heart represented on her own scales.

Struggling to breathe through the pain, she saw Thoth turn over his palms, and a feather appeared on the other side of each set of scales, the same ostrich feather as Ma'at wore. Another sharp and awful pain, this time in her head, and then she passed out.

* * *

The Doctor awoke, but she quickly became aware that she was not, in fact, actually awake.

"This is weird. Am I dreaming? Talking to myself… is that good or bad?"

She tried to recall what had happened before. She remembered being at the commune. The portals had opened, the bloodhounds…

She remembered standing down, letting it take her so as not to risk it hurting young John, that flash of blue light of the dog's collar, the fizz of energy from the teleport.

"So… where am I now?"

She got to her feet, looking around, but all was dark and empty, nothing to see.

"Hello?" she called.

Nothing. It reminded her of being trapped in the Matrix, but the feel was different. There was something at the edge of her perception, familiar but not Gallifreyan.

"Judgement must take place," the falcon-headed guard had said. So, if this was judgement, fairly safe to assume that, like the Matrix, she was inside her own head, but also connected to something larger.

"Not the first time someone's tried this," the Doctor continued. "I mean, I did it to myself. Sort of. Defended myself too, though."

The Valeyard hadn't gone to these sort of lengths, sticking to Gallifreyan justice, though cheating enormously. His claim to be from between her most recent and her current regeneration had clearly been nonsense; if he was real, he was never a 'proper' Doctor, and there was all manner of confusion about those numbers, even before the Matrix had brought up the possibility of her having had previous, forgotten lives.

And of course, there was the prison sentence she'd served part of recently, something she did _not_ want to do again.

"Can we just skip to the end?" she called into the darkness. "I've had enough of judgement, courtrooms and all that. Whatever I do, I always mean for the best. I fight evil, I give help whenever it's asked for. I've made mistakes, I _know_ I've made mistakes. And I've paid for them. I've suffered too. So if this is about guilt, then yeah, I admit there's always guilt. _Huge_ guilt. There've been times it's so bad I can hardly breathe; all the bad things I couldn't stop. All the suffering I couldn't prevent. But I don't let that guilt stop me from trying again, to keep on keeping on. There's a universe of evil out there, but there's hope too. And that's me. Believing in hope, doing my best to bring hope to those who need it."

A long silence followed. Then a figure appeared, robed, their face hidden behind a mask, painted with a stern expression. There was a tall feather in their long black hair, and the blue/green/gold robes had the appearance of wings.

"Well," the Doctor said, drawing herself up to her full height, defiant. "You're not a space rhino, so that's a start."

The figure stood resplendent before her, giving nothing away.

"Not a Time Lord, either. Any chance you're here to tell me what all this is about?

"We are Ma'at," the woman said from behind her mask. "We stand for balance, harmony and order in the universe, against _isfet_ , against injustice, chaos and violence."

The Doctor considered this statement, shrugged.

"Can't say I disagree with all of that."

"There must be judgement of all of living things," the woman continued.

"Ah, now _that_ I do disagree with-"

"You have drawn our attention because of the scale of your life and your actions," Ma'at cut the Doctor off. "Yes, you have done good, and your intentions may have been for good, but you have done harm too."

"I know that," the Doctor replied, her tone flat. "There's no point to this. I've been put on trial before, many times. And unless you can access all the memories I've lost so you can try me on the basis of things I don't remember doing-"

"We are concerned with balance," Ma'at interrupted once more. "If the intentions of your heart and the feather of your actions prove to be balanced, then you will be found worthy."

"Worthy," the Doctor repeated, the word heavy with the implication of her own judgement of her opponent. "And you get to decide that, do you? Abducting people against their will and deciding if they live up to your arbitrary standards?"

"We are Ma'at," the woman said again. "We do not stand above you in judgement, we merely stand for justice and administer a fair trial. Your guilt or your innocence is not the objective here."

"Then what am I doing here? And what have you done with my friend?"

"She will face her own judgement-"

"She's a kid," the Doctor snapped. "She's only twenty-one years old. I'm a hundred times older than her, and I have two hearts to her one. What harm can she have done that could _possibly_ justify all this? Leave her alone!"

"You misunderstand. Neither of you are yet judged, and we will not be judging her. You will do that yourselves."

Ma'at raised one hand, palm extended forward, displaying the Eye of Horus painted on it, the all seeing eye.

"Oh, not again!"

There was a flash and behind Ma'at, figures began to appear in a line. As the Doctor had expected, they were her past selves, beginning with the one she still thought of as her first life, and arranged left to right, up to the one she'd regenerated from into herself. The numberless one, the War Doctor was there too, and her tenth had a shadow behind him, the regeneration he'd suppressed that had combined with a metacrisis, creating an almost human self that was out there in a parallel universe, doing goodness knows what. Or maybe those who'd brought her here did know, and that would be part of this farce.

But there were no faces she didn't recognise, nor was the 'other' Doctor there, the fugitive who'd gone by the name Ruth Clayton when she was hiding as a human. So maybe this really would be just about judging the actions the Doctor remembered.

 _'Might almost've been worth going through this if they'd been able to dig out my lost memories,'_ she thought. _'Looks like another going-over of my life. Like I haven't done this in my own head enough times…'_

One of the ways she'd got through her latest spell in prison was conjuring up people to speak to, lost friends, enemies even. Anything not to be alone. She hadn't done that with her past selves, as such, but remembering the things she knew to be true had kept her sane. Well. Sane-ish.

Ma'at was still there, but fading into translucency.

"When faced with what you have been, what you have done…" she said. "What will you think of yourself then? Will you feel your life is in balance?"

"Yes!" the Doctor snapped, but the woman vanished, leaving her to face her selves.

The Doctor sighed heavily, sick of the process already. But it might be the best way out. A quick trip down memory lane - or as quick as you could be, covering two thousand years or so - and she could find out how to escape, find Serene. At least her friend'd be safe. No matter what Serene might feel guilt over, she'd not done anything so serious it would've brought these weirdos down on her.

The Doctor headed straight for her sixth self, incongruous in his colourful coat. He looked at her, seemingly without recognition.

"Hmm? Yes? What do you want?"

"You were the one of us who went through that Trial. So what was your takeaway from that, eh? Being put on trial by yourself?"

Around them, an image began to form; the courtroom where that previous trial had taken place, surrounding them like a re-enactment frozen in time, though the only occupants of the room were the Doctors.

"Myself? The Valeyard is not, and never was, or will be me! Or us."

He looked her up and down.

"And I'm not sure I believe that you are either."

"Why not? I was never against the idea of being a woman, even when I was you."

"No, not that. Most of my closest friends have been women, after all."

The Thirteenth Doctor rolled her eyes, only to see the Sixth Doctor do the same.

"There's no time for this," she said. "To get out of here we have to prove that there's some sort of balance in our lives. No more harm than help, that sort of thing. What can you think of that might help?"

But he wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, staring in disdain at her clothing. The Doctor realised her appearance was the same as it had been when the bloodhound caught her - barefoot, wearing high-waisted navy trousers, a cream silk blouse and red lipstick. Not a bad look, as such, but she had chosen those clothes for a particular outing to 1920's England, and they didn't represent her, who she was.

She concentrated, remembering the first outfit she'd chosen on regenerating; the short blue trousers, held up by rainbow braces, over a t-shirt also sporting a rainbow, stout boots and her blue/grey coat, clothes she'd worn for years. She'd lost most of that outfit somewhere in the Zinariyan Alliance, but the coat and boots were safe in the TARDIS, awaiting her return.

"That's better. Well, the coat's not bad," he mused. "A bit plain. Have you thought about being a bit more obvious with the rainbows?"

He tugged at his own coat.

"All the time. But I need -"

"Not sure about the hair…"

The Sixth Doctor reached out to pluck a strand of her hair, which remained the light pink she'd dyed it at the Millefiori Galleria. She'd grown rather fond of it.

"But seeing our present company, I'll overlook it."

He glanced up and down the line of their incarnations, arranged chronologically.

"And the most pressing concern is, do you think we'll be able to refrain from arguing long enough to get anything done, if we're all here at once?"

"Good point."

The Thirteenth Doctor concentrated again, and their other regenerations faded, not vanishing but turning translucent, as if banishing them to the back of her mind until they were needed.

"So, remind me. How did we get out of the Trial?"

"I think you already know the answer," he replied. "The Matrix isn't reality, and neither is this."

"Bit complicated, that. Things I've seen in the Matrix, about our past, even before him." She gestured toward the ghostly First Doctor.

The Sixth Doctor made a dismissive gesture.

"Doesn't matter. If we can't remember it, then we can't be judged for it. Don't get distracted, young lady."

"Young lady!" the Thirteenth Doctor exploded in outrage. "I'm more than a thousand years older than you, not one of your companions! I forget I used to be this arrogant. You think you've seen things, you should try living my life-"

He cut her off.

"Yet you need my help. You need all of us, to get out of here. You're not the only one they're judging."

"Be a damn sight easier if I was."

She glanced at the spectral War Doctor.

"He's the one they should be talking to, I suppose, if it's balance they're after. What he did, or thought he did. What you all did, saving Gallifrey. I didn't get called for that, nor any of our future selves."

"Like now, it was about guilt," the Sixth Doctor replied. "It radiated back through all of us who had already been. The next man in line got caught up, but you were too far ahead."

She mulled that over.

"And I thought I couldn't regenerate again, even though I'd seen him -" She looked at the Twelfth Doctor " and then forgot. Things got so tangled."

"They always do. You know what to do."

The Sixth Doctor stepped back, fading away, the courtroom setting fading with him, returned them all to the black nothingness.

The Doctor thought.

"Alright. Let's begin at the beginning."

She took a deep breath, and began again.

/

* * *

Disclaimer: if you recognise anything, it isn't mine, etc.

The following chapters will cover all known incarnations of the Doctor, (separately, or I'd never have finished!) and was actually a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. I couldn't avoid certain associated phrases and behaviours, but hopefully, I've got the 'voice' of each Doctor okay.


	3. Chapter 3

The Thirteenth Doctor marched to the First Doctor, but stopped one step beyond him. looking out into the darkness.

"This is where we started, the first life I remember. The face I had when I left Gallifrey, and I'd already lived a life. What about my childhood? Is that relevant? I was such an innocent. But then… my family. My wife, our children…"

A myriad of images from those centuries of memory appeared in a flurry, as if her life really was flashing before her eyes.

The First Doctor came to life, solidifying and the images stopped, replaced with the interior of the TARDIS, as it had been when he was the occupant.

"It doesn't do to wallow in such things," he began, but the Thirteenth cut him off.

"If you call me 'young lady', you might as well go back into the dark right now. I'm you, twelve lives on, not one of our grandchildren."

"Hmmph." The old man, who was in fact less than half a millennium old, grasped his lapels. "That's as may be, but what good can ever come of stirring up such things, hmm? We learned to live with how things are, when we left."

"Had to leave," the Thirteenth Doctor corrected him. "The 'I wanted to see the universe' line makes a better story, but there wasn't a choice, was there? 'Borrowing' a TARDIS and running away was just preempting any decision the Council might make."

She glanced down the line at her second and third incarnations.

"Which was probably the best idea we'd ever had."

"And we had Susan to think of," the First Doctor said, drawing himself up. "What would she have thought, if we'd given into despair and negativity?"

"Yeah. Stiff upper lip and all that. No wonder we're so fond of Earth, spend so much time in 20th, 21st century England."

But his eyes twinkled.

"And we did see the universe. Have you forgotten? It's not like we went straight to that junkyard in London and stayed there. All those places we went, how much joy it gave her, and us, to travel, to see all the things we saw?"

"Haven't forgotten. It's all still there." The Thirteenth Doctor tapped her forehead. "I've been back to a few of those places, with my friends."

"And leaving her on Earth was the right thing to do, no matter how hard it was," he said, firmly. "For all that she loved to wander, she needed to put down roots, to belong somewhere. To make her own family. We could have taken her back to Gallifrey, but that would have restricted her more."

"What was it you said? No regrets. 'Go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.' Not bad."

That image, Susan standing outside the doors before the TARDIS left her behind, appeared around them. The Thirteenth Doctor stared at her granddaughter, all that was left of her Gallifreyan family.

"It was a necessary sacrifice to ensure she would be happy. And she was. That David fellow made her happier than she would've been trailing around with an old fool like me."

The picture faded, replaced by the TARDIS interiors again.

"I'm a lot older than you," she reminded her past self.

He looked over her choice in clothing.

"Hmm, and an even bigger fool, no doubt."

She laughed.

"Oh definitely. Not gonna argue that one."

"So we become a woman, eventually?"

The First Doctor was thoughtful, tapping his lip with one finger. "I wonder what I would've said to that, if we'd met out there?"

"It was a rarer thing to do, back when we first lived on Gallifrey," she agreed. "Much more acceptable now, barely even mentioned."

"So we did go home, hmm? Gallifrey took us back?"

The Thirteenth Doctor hesitated.

"Bit complicated."

She glanced at the next two regenerations in line.

"Should we do this chronologically? Our family, childhood, then leaving Susan on Earth, that's what I think of when I remember being you."

There were even fainter figures past the adult First Doctor, them as a child, a young man, an older man.

"We made mistakes, but this is when I started to stand up to evil in the universe. First met the Daleks… There's nothing there to be judged on. So I let you go."

The First Doctor faded back, as the Second Doctor came to life, still appearing to be inside the TARDIS.

"Oh my giddy aunt."

He pulled out a handkerchief, mopping his brow, as he looked at his future self.

"Well, this is a turn-up for the books. I'm a young lady, in the future, am I?"

The Thirteenth Doctor laughed again.

"I remember that about being you. A clown, that's what everyone said, yeah? I feel the same way now, sometimes. And that's enough of the 'young lady'. Just cos I went for a younger face… you can hardly talk."

"Well, yes, I suppose so. Not a lot younger, but still… Is there something particular you wanted to ask me?"

The Thirteenth shrugged.

"You remind me of me. Or maybe that should be the other way around."

"That doesn't make a great deal of sense, does it?"

"When you get to be me, it will. And you were kinder than the last one. He wasn't always that way, it was just the face he wore, but you didn't feel the need to do that. You wanted to be nice to people, to stand up to evil and you didn't back down. We have that in common."

"Well, that's good to hear. I met some of my future selves. We didn't always get on, but then it'd a pretty strange universe if we all got on with ourselves all the time, wouldn't it?"

The Thirteenth Doctor smiled at that.

"Stranger than meeting the Solitract, in the form of a frog, who had the voice of one of my late friends?" she asked.

"Goodness! Granny Five was right all along, then?"

Both Doctors laughed.

"But I suppose what I really need to know… when you had to call the Timelords, and they put you on trial. Anything that'd help us here?"

Another 'courtroom' appeared, replaying that memory silently in the background.

"Not really," the Second Doctor replied. "I didn't actually think I'd done anything wrong, you see. And they accepted that evil needed to be fought, but they didn't like me ignoring their rules on non-intervention."

"No, that does help. This trial right now isn't about having specifically done anything wrong either."

"And taking Jamie and Zoe away as part of the punishment..." he continued. "That was a particularly cruel judgement. They were all right, I suppose, for the rest of their lives, but it wasn't right that they couldn't travel with me any longer, because of rules made up by a people the two of them hadn't even met before."

Concern for Serene flitting through the Thirteenth Doctor, but she couldn't spare time for her friend just then.

"I don't know what rules this lot think I've broken," she said. "They haven't accused me of anything. It's about balance, apparently."

"Balance?"

The little man stuck his arms out to the side, standing on one leg, raising the other off the ground. The Thirteenth Doctor smiled.

"More like 'have you done more good than harm' and 'do your actions and your intentions match up' sort of thing."

"Ah. That is a little bit more tricky. I always believed what I was doing was the right thing."

"I try. I started this whole thing thinking it was a waste of time. I'm sort of hoping talking to myself'll show this Ma'at I'm not in need of any more trials or judgement."

"Hmm. Though a little humility might be useful."

"Maybe. Is that what you'd do? Make them think less of you, so they don't see you as a threat?"

In reply, the Second Doctor took out his recorder, played a little reel. The Thirteenth smiled again.

"Though anyone who dresses like she does puts a lot of importance on ceremony. Doubt I'll get out of here 'til I've got through all of us. So…"

She looked at the Third Doctor, who was starting to solidify.

"I'll be off then," the Second said. "Just remember I didn't choose him, when they forced my regeneration. They gave me options, and I didn't like any of them."

The Second Doctor faded, and she turned to the next incarnation, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he looked back at her. The background became TARDIS interiors again, but this time, the console as it was within the UNIT base, open on all sides.

"Well… I always had a great fondness for female scientists," he said. "I suppose it wasn't inconceivable that I'd become one eventually."

"That's one way of looking at it."

"Not that I had any say in what I looked like. The last man was offered a choice, but this regeneration was forced on me. I wonder if he might have chosen a woman, if that'd been one of the options."

"And maybe if you didn't see your companions as assistants then Liz Shaw might've stuck around longer," the Thirteenth Doctor pointed out. "She got a bit tired of passing you your test tubes and telling you how clever you are."

"There's no need to be rude," the Third Doctor retorted. "Liz and Jo were actually assigned to me as assistants through UNIT, you know. And Sarah Jane made her own way into the TARDIS. I don't remember ever asking her to pass me a test tube."

His future self smiled.

"We met her again, you know. Sarah Jane. In several more regenerations. She became an investigator, saved the Earth by herself a few times."

"Oh, jolly good!" The Third Doctor's face broke into a broad smile. "I always knew she had it in her. I expect Jo and her professor fellow did much the same, all that environmentalism she was so passionate about."

"Yeah. Actually, there's something we should probably talk about. You mentioned UNIT. D'you think they helped? Really helped, I mean. In the grand scheme of things."

He considered that, members of UNIT appearing around them, silent and unmoving.

"Good question. I was rather stuck though. Perhaps the question should be, how much worse would things have been if we hadn't been there?"

"Now you're talking. If it's about balance. Maybe I should try that thing where you run simulations of what would happen to the universe if we'd never interfered?"

"I shudder to think," he replied. "Even when I was exiled to Earth, there were so many situations that could've ended in complete disaster."

"Yeah," the Thirteenth Doctor agreed. "And even when things went badly, they could always have been worse."

"Do you think they'll go for that?"

"Can't hurt. They're all about good intentions versus actions and their consequences."

"Then it's probably a good idea it's just you here and not Lethbridge-Stewart," the Third Doctor pointed out, nodding toward the image of the Brigadier.

"He'd say that nothing he did was so bad it was worse than doing nothing at all. Or that the consequences of not doing what he did would be worse, something like that."

"And we wouldn't?"

"Not using his methods we wouldn't. Not that they weren't sometimes effective."

"Yeah. Don't like using violence, but sometimes there isn't a better way. I got to work with his daughter a few times too, head of the scientific side of UNIT."

"Ah wonderful! See, I wasn't lying when I said I had a great admiration for lady scientists."

But the Thirteenth Doctor was thinking.

"I do wonder if there actually is balance, if you include everything. Not just what I've done, but what people have done alongside me, what people do in my name."

"Well, who gets to decide that? What do they mean by balance, and do they live up to their own rules?"

"Good point. I did sort of say that already, when they abducted me and Serene. We weren't doing any harm. It was them, the Ma'at lot, who put innocent people in danger by setting bloodhounds on us."

The Third Doctor looked offended.

"Naturally. They can't claim to be in a position to judge people when they go around behaving like that."

The Thirteenth Doctor looked around again.

"However, doesn't look like righteous indignation is gonna get me out of here. Anything else you want to add?"

The Third Doctor drew himself up, hands in his jacket pockets.

"Just that I won't ever believe we did more harm than good. So keep your chin up, old girl. You'll get through this."

"Thanks. I think."

He faded away, replaced by the next man in line.

The Fourth Doctor was grinning.

"Hello. I don't get to meet myself very often."

"Not that we get to remember meeting ourselves properly. But I do remember that I especially enjoyed being you. Managed to keep that body for longer than most, too."

"Well… when you're having fun."

He wrapped another loop of the scarf around himself, their surroundings morphing into the console room of his TARDIS.

"I thought you might be Romana, at first. She tried out a few different shapes on regenerating, before choosing a new body."

"And a copied one at that. I never had the patience to learn that trick. Don't think I ever did too badly with what I got though."

She glanced up and down the line, taking in the form she'd had last.

"There was a subconscious choice at least once though. Choosing a face to remind me of an important moment in our past."

The Fourth Doctor pulled a yo-yo out of his capacious pocket and began rolling it up and down.

"Marvellous."

"I've got one of those."

The Thirteenth Doctor dug around her own coat pockets.

"Haven't got round to playing the spoons again, though. That's a few regenerations down the line. People tended to find it annoying, which I think was the point."

"Great fun, isn't it?"

The huge grin got impossibly wider, eyes glinting with humour.

"Sometimes I forget I'm only doing it to distract people or put them off their guard, and I find myself annoying them just because I enjoy it," he continued. "Pompous great dictators and people with terribly complex evil plans especially."

The Thirteenth Doctor matched his smile.

"Yep. Can't argue with that."

"Speaking of distractions…"

He snapped the yo-yo back up into his hand.

"Oh. Yeah."

"Much as we might enjoy it, annoying the people who put on this show probably won't do much good. Might be worth attempting a disruption though."

"Like breaking the Matrix? Already took my cue from you last time I was on Gallifrey."

"The 'I deny this reality' bit? Have you tried that here?"

Images flashed up all around; things they had seen within the Matrix.

"Not sure it'd work again. And besides, we're all here already and that didn't break it. Wonder what it would take."

"All of us trying at once?"

"I'll bear that in mind. But the fact that they seem to want me to talk to all of you, rather than us all being judged individually by an outside force makes me think this is a 'everything you've done up to now' kind of judgement thing."

"It's not a real trial, though, is it? Just us, here in the dark, thinking about what we've done."

"Did enough of that in prison."

The Thirteenth Doctor shoved those memories away. Didn't want to waste time thinking that over again.

"Do they know that?" The Fourth Doctor gestured towards 'out there'.

"Doubt they care. Even if I get through all this and decide there is balance in our lives after all, they might ignore it and decide something else. No idea what they get out of roaming round the universe grabbing people and judging them."

"I like the hair by the way," he said, grinning again. "Not sure it'd have suited me, but I like it."

"Helps distract people when I don't want them to take me seriously, and they definitely find it more annoying when I win, this pink-haired alien woman they dismissed as no threat."

"I really should have tried that."

He began playing with the yo-yo again.

"Don't think it's done much good here," the Thirteenth Doctor replied. "Though they said my friend was on trial too, and I can't imagine they really think she's done anything to warrant this sort of treatment."

"Do you think she's co-operating though? Most of my friends wouldn't have."

The Thirteenth Doctor briefly remembered the people they'd travelled with in this regeneration. She'd already been reminded of Sarah Jane and the UNIT staff with the last man, now she thought of Harry, Leela, both of Romana's incarnations, K9 even. Oh, wouldn't the tin dog be useful now! And the three that had stayed with him over the regeneration period; Nyssa, Tegan and Adric.

Concentrating, she brought up the next man in line, keeping the Fourth here too.

"The Sixth of us made a good point when he said we wouldn't be able to refrain from arguing long enough to get anything done, if we're all here at once. But I don't always have to do this one at a time."

"Ah. Yes, I remember being you," the Fifth Doctor said to his former self, then turned to the Thirteenth.

"And you're… me in the future. How extraordinary."

The Thirteenth looked him over thoughtfully.

"You know, I haven't played cricket in years. Centuries, maybe. Some of my more recent friends were keen on football, but can't remember the love for cricket."

The TARDIS interiors changed to an outdoor pitch, green grass and sunshine.

"You were really keen on the British stereotype thing, weren't you?" she continued. "Tea, cricket, fair play and all that."

The Fifth Doctor looked mildly offended, but the Fourth was laughing.

"There's nothing wrong with any of those," the Fifth Doctor said, to his earlier self. "And it's not like you didn't have the same thoughts about fair play. For example, that time you could've blown up the Daleks, preventing them from ever having been created, but you didn't."

"Yes, I thought about that an awful lot, afterwards," the Fourth Doctor replied. "Sarah wouldn't let it drop, wanted to go back and do it again, and not just Daleks. She got a bit might obsessed with all the things we could prevent. We argued about that a lot."

"Not just Sarah. Tegan did a lot of that too."

All three Doctors were silent for a moment, the unspoken reference to the death of one of their mutual travelling companions hanging in the air.

"That's a big tick in the guilt box," the Thirteenth Doctor said. "Not saving Adric."

"He made his own choice," the Fifth Doctor replied, sounding like it was something he'd said many times, even if only to himself. "If I could have saved him, I would, and he knew that. He still stayed on the ship, knowing I might not be able to. He wanted to do everything he could."

"And you ended up dying to save Peri, when there wasn't enough antidote for both of us," The Thirteenth Doctor mused.

The Fourth Doctor snapped the yo-yo back up into his hand and began to fade away, withdrawing from the conversation. She looked further down the line. Having already spoken with the Sixth, should she skip to the Seventh, or just bring everyone up at once? Yes, they'd argue, but it might be quicker in the long run. Or would her unseen judges intervene? The Ma'at personification had said the Doctor was to judge herself, but how likely was it they would go along with her end decision? And what about the people, the creatures she'd fought - how many of them had thought that what they were doing was the right thing? Too complicated. Best to stick with the path they were already on.

"What did Ma'at say?" she said. "They were against injustice, chaos and violence."

"I agree with them on the injustice. Probably the same with chaos. There was a lot of violence, when I was the Doctor," the Fifth spoke up. "I tried to avoid it, but… there wasn't always another way."

More images appeared, incongruously mixed with the cricket pitch; Daleks, Cybermen, the Mara and the Malus, Omega.

"I know how that feels," the Thirteenth replied. "I call myself a pacifist, but I'm not really."

"And that's probably what they out there are asking," the Fifth pointed out. "Those times we had to take action, and there were negative consequences. Are they balanced out by the times we did find another way?"

"I never really kept a scoreboard, if that's what they mean."

"I think that's enough of the cricket references from you."

"At least you can't call me 'young lady'. You had the youngest face so far, not many that followed looked younger than you."

The Fifth Doctor smiled.

"It made a nice change, at the time. Not being seen as a grumpy old man, but still getting away with behaving like one."

"Oh, I dunno. I was a grumpy old man before I got this regeneration," the Thirteenth Doctor began but the Fifth carried on.

"And a little less manic than the man before."

"But more argumentative. Or was that just who you travelled with?"

"Well, I can't really disagree with that. Much as I might want to. And most of my companions were young too."

"I remember," the Thirteenth Doctor replied. "Kept that up for quite a while, mostly. Being friends with young 'uns makes me forget how old I really am. 'Spose that's another guilt thing, though, making friends with someone who's never seen much of the universe, and changing them, who they are. Not always for the better."

"But how could we know how things would develop?" the Fifth Doctor asked. "And who knows how badly things would have gone for some of them if we'd left them where we met them? Or stopped them from stowing away…"

"Well, yeah. But that applies to everything, doesn't it? We have to believe things are better because of what we've done, or we'd stop altogether."

The Fifth Doctor considered that.

"Has anyone ever said that? That you - we - should just give up?"

"In a way." She glanced down the line at the Eleventh Doctor. "Some people get funny ideas about why they need to stop us. Never really did understand where they were coming from."

"That's it exactly. They might have seen one aspect of our lives, and judged us on that. But think of all the times we changed things for the better. Ended a war or an invasion, that sort of thing."

"But this isn't just about what we've done, is it?" The Thirteenth Doctor said. "Ma'at is about balancing heart - intentions- against her feather. She gets to make up the balance. I said right from the start that I believed there was balance, of a kind, enough to keep me going anyway, but we're still here. I think she wants me to confront all the things I did, we did."

"So, moving on?" The Fifth Doctor asked.

"Looks like. Might be back. Who knows?"

"Best of luck, then."

They shook hands, and he faded away.


	4. Chapter 4

The Fifth Doctor faded, and the Thirteenth, having already gotten what she needed from the Sixth, moved on to her Seventh incarnation.

She looked at the yo-yo she'd found in her pockets.

"What was that I said earlier about spoons?"

"Spoons?" he echoed.

She might have expected him to pull out a pair and start playing them, but he didn't. Leaning on his umbrella, he looked back at her with an expression of surprising seriousness. Their surroundings became the arena where they had faced the Gods of Ragnarok, which felt strangely appropriate.

"Yes, I played the clown, when it suited me to, or when it helped, but that isn't what's needed here, is it?"

"More about all the chess playing, then?"

"Sometimes it was necessary. To manipulate people into places that would be advantageous, not just to us but to everything. If we'd told them all that was going on, then things would've gone differently."

"And what, you think manipulating Ace was balanced out by everything else we did for her?" The Thirteenth Doctor asked. "Teaching her? D'you think we made her a better person?"

He raised his eyebrows, as if surprised by her question.

"In the long run, yes. Not that we were the only ones manipulating her, either. But we did manage to get her to confront things about herself, her past, her family, that no-one else would have. You can't really believe she'd have been better, or done more good to the universe if she'd remained stuck in Perivale, do you?"

"She might've been safer," the Thirteenth Doctor pointed out. "All the things we couldn't protect her from."

"But who gets to make that decision?" The Seventh Doctor pressed, maintaining eye contact all the time. "Ace would never have chosen to go back and live in the 20th century over everything we could show her."

"Most of our friends wouldn't. And every time I make a new friend, I forget about that, in all the excitement of travelling with someone new."

"So, you believe the universe would be better if we travelled alone? No help, no backup?"

"Course not. But I'm here because they want me to think about what I've done in my lives. And that includes the impact what I've done has on other people. This'll come up again and again, I know."

"So you think I did more harm than good? To our companions, our friends?"

The Thirteenth Doctor shrugged.

"Wouldn't put it quite like that. I try to be a bit more honest with them, but you can't tell them everything, can you?"

"Isn't withholding information the same thing?"

"If I'm trying to protect them? No. They might be able to handle it, but why take that risk?"

"Eventually, most things come to light, no matter what we do."

"Maybe. That's one of the things that's so nice about my friend I'm travelling with now. She got a load of my memories by accident the day we met, so it's harder to surprise her with stuff from my past. Even if she didn't know it, it's like she sort of heard it before and just needs to be reminded. Saves a lot of time and worry."

"But you do still worry."

"Course I do. I'm always wondering if I did the right thing, taking her with me. She's so young, and it's already changed her. And right now, who knows what's happening to her?"

"Maybe she's watching?" the Seventh Doctor suggested quietly.

"Am I trying to manipulate myself?" the Thirteenth Doctor replied, amused. He smiled back.

"Is it working?"

"Maybe. Can't hurt, not in here. Anyway, if you are watching, Serene, we can talk about this later, when we get out. I don't mean I regret travelling with you, not for a second. I just worry about the cost of it, sometimes."

"As did I," the Seventh Doctor added. "It never meant I didn't care."

"No, I remember being you. I remember how much we cared about Ace. She reminded us of the family we lost."

"Quite. And if she was here now? What do you think she'd say?"

"Other than trying to blow something up to get us out of here?"

They both grinned at the thought.

"Dunno. She'd defend us. Most of our friends would, even those we parted from on bad terms."

"Does that help?"

"Knowing that even people I hurt would still side with me? I don't know. Do you?"

"Ah, but I'm not really me. I'm the memories of me, inside your head. And they out there are doing far worse in terms of manipulation than I ever did."

"Fair point. Could use some nitro-9 right now."

The Seventh Doctor smiled.

"Wicked."

* * *

"Okay. So… next man in line?"

The Seventh Doctor thought for a moment.

"Wasn't a particularly easy regeneration. Not that any of them were especially, but this one was the only time I was actually dead before a regeneration came on, I think. Multiple gunshot wounds and exploratory surgery; not the nicest way to go."

"But," the Eighth Doctor spoke up, solidifying. "We did make friends with that particular surgeon after, and she felt very bad about accidentally killing us."

He smiled at the Thirteenth Doctor as his previous self faded, and his own TARDIS interiors appeared around them.

"I thought of Grace when I was regenerating," he said. "That the universe might need another woman Doctor. Didn't work out that way, but looks like we caught up eventually."

"I forgot about Grace. Not quite the same as me, though."

"Of course not. But she'd have liked you."

"I'm very likeable. As were you. All charm and sincerity. Bounding through time and space like some adorable spaniel."

The Eighth Doctor looked as if he didn't know whether or not to be offended.

"I- what? A _spaniel?"_

"I've been called much the same. Golden retriever in my case. You remind me of me, again. Apart from the kissing-your-friends thing. You did a lot of that. A romantic, even."

"To begin with, at least."

They both glanced ahead up the line, the Eighth Doctor's appearance changing. His hair went from almost shoulder-length to cropped, his outfit becoming battered and worn. The TARDIS interior vanished, replaced with a bleak, rocky landscape.

"Before it all took a dark turn. Things that changed me before I changed. None of us are suited to war, but the Sisters of Karn gave me the choice, and we needed to be a warrior, not a Doctor."

"Well, you get to be an optimist again, if that helps. Have to go through a few dark times, and even the puppyish young 'un a few regenerations along was capable of being pretty dark, but I try and look on the bright side of things, when I can. Helps when we have mates who see things that way too."

"Mmm."

She could tell that the Eighth Doctor was thinking about the friends he travelled with, those he lost and how.

"Even before the Time War began, I struggled with maintaining that optimism," he continued. "Things got very bad. It's hard to think positively when Daleks keep killing people you care about. Not to mention all the planet destroying…"

"We don't need to think about that," the Thirteenth Doctor cut in quickly. "This isn't about that. The balance of our life doesn't need to recall everything."

"But we're coming up on the big stuff," the Eighth replied. "And that I tried to keep out of it for such a long time… that's not going to help us here, is it?"

"That we held off being a soldier in a war that was destroying the universe? We knew we couldn't stay a pacifist, not when the war took over everything, but that isn't a bad thing."

"Are we talking about guilt, or intent?" he asked, his mood darkening even more. "I always tried to do the right thing, to save people, right to the end. Would things have gone better if I'd changed earlier? Fought harder?"

"What use is thinking like that?" she replied. "We could say that about every one of us."

"But not on this scale. This wasn't just a war. When people say 'a war to end all wars', they don't usually mean it'll end literally everything. And it so nearly did."

"And that's why we stayed away," she cut in. "We didn't want to be a part of that. If we could stick to the usual saving people, stopping smaller wars…"

"Yes, I know all that. I'm the one who thought it. Accepting we could no longer be a doctor, that we weren't needed any more. That… well, it took dying to accept that."

"But I'm saying this from my perspective, over a thousand years of life later," the Thirteenth Doctor pointed out. "You had to make that choice, to face up to it and I don't. That's my privilege. I just remember it. And all that comes next."

"Yes, well I won't stick around for that, if you don't mind," the Eighth Doctor said. "It was bad enough the first time around. I don't want to see what come next."

"But we survive. We live. We keep going, and we keep on saving people, best we can," she said. It was strange, trying to console yourself, in a former incarnation.

"It doesn't end in war. Not that war, anyway. I don't know what's coming. Doubt it could be as bad as the Time War."

The Eighth Doctor gave her a tiny smile.

"See, the optimism does survive," he said. "I can live with that."

"You do."

"Then good luck, Doctor."

He shook her hand, kissing her cheek, and then he faded.

* * *

For a long moment, the Doctor didn't move, not wanting to relive what came next any more than her previous self had. But if she was getting out of here, then she had to. Could maybe have skipped straight to this part, if Ma'at wanted her to balance her life.

"But then again," she said out loud. "Here's where it gets complicated."

The barn on Gallifrey surrounded them, the War Doctor standing waiting, with his arms folded. Older, grizzled, aged by conflict and suffering. He stared at her, but he didn't speak.

"I get to remember what really happened, with the Moment," she said. "You didn't. Not until our eleventh self - Eleventh Doctor anyway. Not all of it, not when there were three of us in the same place - thirteen of us, at one time. But you never got to remember that. You remember burning Gallifrey, not saving it."

Still he said nothing.

"What must you think of me? You hated that we got younger, that we acted like it never happened, that we didn't do what we did. That we got to carry on, and feel the burden lightening, or at least pretend that we did."

Faced with an ongoing silence, the Thirteenth Doctor felt the urge to fill the air with prattle, to continue to think out loud the way she would when faced with an enemy, but this was the ultimate, wasn't it? The time you did a monstrous thing to end a war, end further suffering, took on that burden because no-one else would. The reluctant soldier was the one to commit the most violent act, even if they later found a way to fix it, to undo it.

_'And Gallifrey still burned, no matter what,'_ she thought. But that would come later.

"Guilt isn't a strong enough word," she said aloud. "We expected to die alongside everyone else, and found that living with what we did was harder than going through with it. Even after we changed what happened, saved Gallifrey, it was still impossible to live with what we did. "

The Thirteenth Doctor turned, staring up into the black nothingness.

"Is that what you want to hear?" she yelled into the silent dark. "That nothing could ever balance that out? That even our intentions could never be enough to balance out burning a planet?"

And hiding within that was the most horrifying thing of all… that the surviving family members she'd left behind when she first ran away from Gallifrey, those that lived to see the Time War had died during it, or had burned with the planet. And for so, so long, she'd thought she'd killed them all herself, the first time around. That had been undone, but she still didn't know what had happened to them. If they had survived everything Gallifrey had gone through, then that meant the Master had killed them, and she couldn't think of that, not now, not ever.

She turned back to her former self.

It hurt, it physically hurt to be reminded of that point in time - outside of time really, but what did that matter?

"The worst thing we ever did, so much so that we tried to forget we'd ever been you, denied you the name of Doctor. But we've been through this. The others-"

She glanced up at the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors.

"They accepted you, and in fixing it, made peace with what we'd done. As much as we ever could. I still carry that. I may have a younger face, and dress in rainbows, but that's not all I am. I remember being you, how it felt to make that decision. I still dream it."

Her hand clenched into a fist.

"I doubt that'll ever stop. And I'll always have the thought somewhere that it wasn't the right thing to do, I will admit that. I don't believe that it was wrong, but I'll always have that in me too. I'm not a soldier, not a warrior, but I have the privilege of not having to, because of that decision, lifetimes ago."

She stopped still, facing the War Doctor, folding her own arms.

"And that's all I have to say."

For a moment, nothing. Then he nodded his head to her, very slightly.

"Doctor," he said. And then he faded away.

An acknowledgement. An acceptance. Maybe that was all that was needed. Did it matter if she and her previous selves agreed on the balance?

* * *

The Thirteenth Doctor left the barn behind and moved on to the Ninth Doctor, standing inside his TARDIS. To begin with, his body language was the same as his predecessor, arms folded, expression grim. But then he visibly relaxed.

"You talked about how what we do changes our friends, but what about how they change us?" he said. "Without Rose… she saved me, saved the world, saved the universe."

"Yeah. Didn't exactly get off unscathed though, did she?"

"I can't help that. I tried to send her home, keep her safe."

"And she nearly tore the universe apart trying to save us. Because she loved us."

The Ninth Doctor paused, shifting uncomfortably, the words 'Bad Wolf' hanging in the air between them.

"I underestimated her. All humans. What we'd done, the Time War. Everything seemed so tiny after that. What could one little mayfly human do that would stand up against all that?"

"Quite a lot, it turns out."

"Yeah. Not just Rose, either. Took a while, but it got through to me eventually."

"Start to could see the little things, start to care again," the Thirteenth Doctor joined in.

"I cared! I helped loads of people, even ones I didn't like or who didn't deserve it! That wasn't all Rose. I was already dealing with the Autons myself when I met her; I didn't have to do that. After… I could've stopped then. I'd earned a break, but no, I kept on going, doing what we've always done, because it's what we do."

"But what would we've been like without her? If we'd met someone else, or no-one at all."

The Ninth Doctor shrugged.

"Who knows? I'm never gonna regret meeting her, no matter what."

The Thirteenth Doctor wondered how much to push these memories. PTSD didn't seem a strong enough diagnosis for how they'd felt in the aftermath, but travelling, seeing all the living beings who were alive and well, unaffected by the War, going about their business, that had helped. Travelling with a human was usually a good way to regain perspective, too.

"It's good to hear the accent again, though," she said. "Other than a bit of Scottish here and there, we tended to be a bit RP up until now. Can't remember why; should've asked them before."

He grinned.

"Must've been passing by Salford when deciding on a voice."

"I was a few miles above Sheffield, myself. We're not gonna argue about Yorkshire versus Lancashire, are we?"

"Might be more fun than what we're supposed to be talking about," he pointed out.

They both looked up and down the line of Doctors.

"It does get better, from here," the Thirteenth Doctor said. "We start to… heal's not the right word. Still a bit up and down for a while."

"But I end up as you? Could be worse."

"Oi!"

"Could've chosen to be a woman before, you know. On Karn. That was a choice, but I put it off, wasn't ready then."

Another thought occurred to the Thirteenth Doctor.

"Would Rose've felt differently about us if we'd been female?"

"Doubt it. Jack wouldn't either." He considered. "Mickey might've."

"Mickey! Forgot all about Mickey Smith!"

"Mickey the idiot."

"Nah, he's alright!" She grinned. "Grew up a bit, turned out great. Married one of our other friends, they both saved the world more than once. Now he's someone you could argue turned out better for having met us."

The Ninth Doctor frowned.

"Apart from that year people spent thinking he'd murdered Rose, 'cos we came back late. Not surprising we didn't get on so well."

"But he's fine now!" The Thirteenth Doctor waved her hand but her earlier self caught it, holding her still.

"I can see what you're doing. It's what we all do, after. Try and make light of things, so we don't have to think about the dark stuff."

"Trying to be an optimist again," she argued. "See the good in things, what makes it worthwhile, what keeps us going."

"And we're better for that?"

"Better than giving up."

"Or are we still trying to put things right?" the Ninth Doctor asked. "Knowing we can't, that nothing, nothing will ever make up for the past?"

"Isn't that what this is about? I keep coming back to this point; can we ever balance out what we did?"

"It's why I saved Rose. She didn't know what'd happen when she looked into the vortex, but I did. I knew it'd kill me. And even though I knew he'd be along to look after her-" he glanced at the next man along "- I was still gonna die. It wasn't much, but it was a start."

"And you never got to remember that we fixed it, either," the Thirteenth Doctor said, pushing past her hesitation. "You went through your whole regeneration remembering Gallifrey burning."

He let go of her arm.

"You were there, though, when they saved Gallifrey," she continued. "I wasn't, but somehow I remember it. We save it, and it survives the Time War."

"Is that enough?" he asked.

"I'm not the one who can decide that."

"Then who can? Those weirdos out there who set up trials based on some dead Earth culture, deciding if the good we did balances out the bad?"

"That or these weirdos in here," the Thirteenth replied, gesturing to her former selves. "And why start now, with me? Could've picked any one of us from the time stream, maybe even a future self - and I know there must be future selves, even though I haven't met any yet. See? Optimist."

"Do they have time travel? This Ma'at lot?"

"Must do, unless this is still the 1920s, wherever we are. They used portals and teleport. Very shambolic method of travel unless you're very good at it; like cut 'n' paste across space and time."

"Then maybe you need to find out why they did take you, and what made them decide on you now," he said. "I don't wanna hang around here any longer than we have to."

"Fair enough. I'll get a shift on. Only three more to go. Sort of."

* * *

The Ninth Doctor faded, and the Tenth came to life. He was grinning broadly.

"Hello, Doctor!" he greeted her. "In here, I can remember meeting other Doctors -" he jerked his thumb toward the War Doctor, and their Eleventh self. "But this should be good. Pink hair rather than ginger, though?"

"Thought about going red. We hung out with a lot of redheads though, didn't we?"

The Tenth Doctor thought about it, ticking off on his fingers.

"Tegan, Turlough, Mel, Donna…"

"And after you'd gone, Amy. And River was kind of strawberry-blonde at times."

"Ooh, spoilers!" he grinned.

"Yeah, you're right. Big time, when it comes to River. Anyway, we're distracting ourselves again."

"Well, yes. Obviously."

"Can't help but come back to the way we change people by taking them off round the universe," she said. "You thought about that a lot."

His grin faded.

"I had to. Rose saved our life, but there was nothing I could do to keep her with me. Martha had a chance to walk away, but she'd already become a different woman."

"Not all bad, though," the Thirteenth Doctor said. "She saved the world a few times."

"And the rest. It wasn't ideal, seeing her with UNIT, but…"

"She made them better by being a part of it? I just had a similar conversation with our third self. But even Donna noticed how we'd changed Martha, and she'd only just met her."

The Tenth Doctor's expression went from sad to bereft.

"I can't think about Donna. Please tell me it gets better?"

The Thirteenth shrugged, not wanting to think about it any more than her former self did.

"You already know the answer to that. We make other friends, but we never stop missing the ones we lose. She's fine though. We check in on her and Shaun and the kids every now and then, and she's safe, and happy. That's all we could hope for."

"I suppose so. She can't remember the time she was the most important woman in the universe, but if we do, her mother and Wilf do… That'll have to be enough."

The Thirteenth Doctor glanced over his shoulder, at the shadow of the metacrisis Doctor.

"Maybe we should've checked in on him, too. I'm sure Rose can cope with almost anything, but…"

The Tenth Doctor refused to turn and look.

"There's one for the 'don't know' column," the Thirteenth Doctor continued. "A physical manifestation of our past actions, running around a parallel world. You don't worry about what he's up to?"

"Like you said. Rose can cope. And she has her family with her."

"No TARDIS, no sonic, no regeneration. D'you suppose he learned to settle down, be content with that?"

"Not like he had much choice. He's not the same person as me, not really."

"Should've been our responsibility, though."

The two Doctors stared at each other, the discussion on the brink of a real argument. Then the Thirteenth pushed that away. There was no need to do that, not here.

"Turns out you didn't need to worry about 'wasting' a regeneration keeping that face; we've got plenty to spare," she said, trying to make her voice bright and breezy again.

"I never worried about that," he replied, terse. "And it wasn't just the face I wanted to keep."

"I know. You didn't want to stop being the Doctor, to give this up."

"None of us do. You get to remember being me, but out there, I stopped existing when I regenerated properly."

There was another tense pause.

"It'll happen to me too, one day." The Thirteenth Doctor tried to shrug that thought off, but she'd have to face up to it sooner or later.

"And it turns out we all forgot who-knows-how-many lives we had before. I've tried to let that go, to be more than just the sum of our memories, but maybe who we were should be remembered. Somehow."

The Tenth Doctor looked uncomfortable, also trying to shrug off unpleasant thoughts.

"Even if we forgot who we were, there must be someone out there who remembers us then. The lost Doctors, as it were."

"That's a thought," the Thirteenth Doctor agreed. "Wonder of we could track people down that way?"

She made a mental note to try and summon the Fugitive Doctor, 'Ruth', once she was done with her known incarnations.

"I did wonder if we could find lost memories in here. Doesn't look like we can, but what we know that we remember comes to life. As if you never went away, just hung around in my brain, long after regenerating. Not just memories, but actual consciousness."

"Weird, isn't it?" The Tenth Doctor glanced up and down the line. "Even the Matrix usually didn't bring up more than one of us at a time."

The Thirteenth Doctor smiled.

"Couldn't handle all of us at once, no. Tested that, and it blew up."

"Oh. Good for you?" he replied, letting that sink in.

"Does sort of make you wonder what some of our adventures would've been like with a different Doctor at the helm?" he continued. "Whether having a different face would've changed the decisions we made."

"Maybe. Sometimes we do end up revisiting places. And then there's meeting the same people at different points in their timeline, wearing a new face each time."

"People like Jack, you mean?" he asked. "Eternals who live as long as we have?"

"Yeah." The Thirteenth Doctor smiled, thinking of her reunion with Captain Jack Harkness, how he'd rescued her from prison and all that followed. "He copes with it better than most, I s'pose."

"And that's without mentioning…" The Tenth Doctor indicated over her shoulder, a shadowy set of figures. Other Time Lords and Ladies they'd known in their lives, some with multiple regenerations.

"Yeah," the Thirteenth Doctor agreed. "We don't go around looking for that sort of trouble, gotta count for something. No matter what harm we do, we never mean to, like they did. Not unless there was no other way."

"And we stopped the worst of what they tried to do, usually."

The Thirteenth Doctor winced, not wanting to discuss that.

"Maybe you could present that as evidence," he suggested. "You know, sort of, we might not be perfect, but look at how bad things could've been. We'd never make the choices they did, and even at our worst, we never actively wanted to do harm."

"Might work," she replied. "Still haven't figured out what'll get them to let us out. I already rejected the idea, said our lives were in balance…"

"Maybe we need to stop talking. Allons-y!"

The Tenth Doctor turned and ran full tilt out of the TARDIS, away from the line of their other selves. Startled, the Thirteenth Doctor burst out laughing, and ran after him.


	5. Chapter 5

For a while, there was nothing surrounding the Tenth and Thirteenth Doctors as they ran, just the endless black. Then images began to appear; planets, moons, stars, and the blackness became space, as the Doctors remembered seeing it while travelling through it. Any time the TARDIS doors opened in deep space, it took their breath away how beautiful the universe could be. They stopped still, surrounded by the imagery.

"How much difference would it make if everyone could see this?" the Tenth Doctor said, encompassing the whole of space with a wave of his arm. "Real perspective."

"I like to think so," the Thirteenth Doctor agreed. "There's always hope that people could look past their problems if they could see how tiny their lives are in comparison. Not unimportant, but to look past all the things that don't matter. We're all citizens of the universe."

"And a gentleman to boot," the Tenth Doctor added, grasping the lapels of his coat in mimicry of their first self. The Thirteenth Doctor laughed.

"Speak for yourself."

The Tenth Doctor grinned.

"I am. But does speaking for myself mean speaking for all of us?"

"In here? Maybe. I'm speaking for all of us, after all. Or they out there are judging me for all of us. Don't know if they've ever come across a Time Lord before."

"Probably complicated things for them a bit, yeah," the Tenth Doctor agreed. "So…"

He waved his arm again, and the vista changed. Different planets, ones that shouldn't be together.

"Remind them of times things wouldn't just have been worse without us. They would've been catastrophic, or indeed, would've stopped altogether."

The planets began to rearrange, moving back to where they should be, and the TARDIS whirled by, towing the Earth.

"One of my finer moments. So make sure they know that. Without us, they literally wouldn't be here to pass judgement."

"Good point," she agreed. "Their thing is whether there's balance, and that's a massive weight on the 'good' side. Or however it works."

She thought about it, the phrase 'Time Lord Victorious' on the tip of her tongue. But she dismissed it.

"That was when Davros did the 'see your true face' thing, yeah? About how we change the people who travel with us."

"We've already done that bit," the Tenth Doctor pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's what this is about. Saved the universe, and we needed our friends to do it, but if they'd known how travelling with us would go, what it'd do to them, how it'd end… would they still want to come?"

The Tenth Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Honestly? Yes. Martha didn't like what it did to her family, but she'd still choose having her eyes opened to the universe at large, over staying Earth-bound her whole life."

"Hmm."

The Thirteenth Doctor thought of her current travelling companion, of whom much the same could be said. Indeed, most of them would probably agree with him. They might want to change some aspects of their time together, and many had been forced to leave instead of choosing to do so. She never wanted her friends to go either, but that wasn't something she'd ever had control over, so could that really be held against them?

"And I'm a little surprised you have the patience for all this," the Tenth Doctor added. "Many of us wouldn't."

"Not sure I really do. But I had a lot of time to think about stuff like this, not that long ago. Consequences of our actions and all that. How the universe sees us, despite all the times we've saved it."

The Tenth Doctor frowned.

"Sounds terrible."

"Didn't enjoy it, no. Got through it. Very much looking forward to getting out of here, though."

"Well, best of luck," the Tenth Doctor said. "I'm gonna stay here, and look at this some more." He indicated the stars around them. "Shout if you need me?"

"Will do."

* * *

He remained where he was, and the Thirteenth Doctor brought herself back to the others, as the Eleventh Doctor came to life, by the console of his TARDIS.

Like his predecessor, his face immediately broke into a broad grin.

"Wowza!" he exclaimed. "You're me? I'm you?"

"Yup."

"Well, isn't that marvellous! I did think I might be a girl when I first regenerated, good to know I wasn't far off. The Corsair did it, more than once, so why shouldn't we?"

He poked at her hair.

"This is good. Why didn't I think of that? Pink hair… would've loved pink hair."

"I'm sure Amy and River would've disagreed. They had enough trouble with the fez."

The Eleventh Doctor's face went momentarily morose, and he tugged at his bow tie.

"I know. Why did they hate me wearing hats so much? It's not like I even wore anything that weird. Rory spent 2000 years as a Centurion and neither of them minded that."

"Amy seemed quite fond of that look," the Thirteenth Doctor replied, thinking of the Ponds' honeymoon on the space liner.

"Well, yes. Humans, eh? Their strange little mating rituals."

The Thirteenth Doctor's thoughts leapt to Serene, back at the artist's commune, and the possibility of a romance that had been brewing there before they were so rudely interrupted. How would that have gone, otherwise? There hadn't been much trouble in the romance department, this regeneration.

"You can hardly talk," she said to her former self. "How many times did you get married?"

"Ah, yes, well, you see, the thing is…"

"Yeah?" the Thirteenth Doctor raised her eyebrows, smiling.

"The thing is… shut up, that's the thing."

"Oi! I'm you, not one of your human friends! Don't go telling me to shush. I've gone years being me without getting married at all."

"A number of those were accidents, it has to be said."

"Not the first to do that," the Thirteenth Doctor amended, thinking of her first self's unintentional engagement to an Aztec woman, her Tenth self's marriage to Queen Elizabeth I.

"And River married a fair few people too," she continued. "Good job neither of us are really the jealous type."

"Good old River. Wouldn't want her to change, not one jot."

"Hmm. Getting distracted again. Come on, help us out. Is there balance in all the things we did?"

The Eleventh Doctor thought about it.

"Hard to say, with all the reboots, things that we weren't sure were real or not… But we did have rather a lot of trouble with people deciding they needed to dedicate themselves to stopping us. At least when they all ganged up on us together, with the Pandorica, it was because they thought the TARDIS would destroy everything. It wasn't entirely personal."

"Yeah," his future self agreed. "But if we're talking about personal... did we ever really figure out what Madame Kovarian's deal was?"

"Sort of. She seemed convinced that waging war on us was necessary. All that business with the Silence, engineering a psychopath specially to kill us, which was an awful lot of trouble to go to for it to fail at the last minute by her falling in love with me."

The Eleventh Doctor looked momentarily smug.

"Can't say I blame her. We are pretty smashing."

"Concentrate," the Thirteenth Doctor reminded him, trying not to smile. "This is about responsibility, right? We got people so cross they tried to create armies to stop us, but we weren't sure why?"

"It started as something to do with the cracks in the universe, while I was spending hundreds of years guarding over Christmas, on Trenzalore. Got rather complicated."

"But surely that counts for something," she replied. "Usually, we ran off straight after fixing something, but not then. We stayed, defended them. Does that balance out? You lived a long time as you, longer than most incarnations."

"And it was wonderful. I love dashing about across the universe, but we got the chance to stay somewhere, to be a part of something. We usually find trouble, if we don't bring it ourselves, but we fix things too, as best we can."

"That's what I said at the beginning. We try, and surely that counts for more than doing nothing. We've never really stood by and let bad things happen, unless we really had to."

His face fell.

"And when we really had to let things be, we suffered as a consequence."

She knew he was talking about giving up the Ponds, their lives in New York becoming a fixed point he couldn't change, couldn't ever see them again.

"They were okay. Really, they were."

"Amy and Rory were more than 'okay'. They were _wonderful_. My best friends, the best people. New York was lucky to have them. All those years, that city had the Ponds all to itself, looking after the people living there, I know they did."

"Yeah. Maybe that's part of why we stayed in Christmas, being its guardian. It reminded us of them, of our other friends who stayed behind. All the good those people did after travelling with us."

"Right from the beginning. Leaving Susan on Earth, after the Dalek invasion."

"Yeah, I talked to him about that. The first Us. Knowing it was the right thing to do, no matter how we felt about it."

"And Romana! E-Space was much better off with a Time Lady looking after it."

"And K9," the Thirteenth Doctor added.

"One of them," the Eleventh agreed. "And Jo and Sarah Jane were no slouches either, on Earth. Saving the world, in one way or another. It was great to see them again, to know the planet's in safe hands, when we're not there."

The Thirteenth Doctor thought of her friends, the 'fam', how they'd stepped up when she was locked up in prison, and how that had led Ryan and Graham to choose to stay behind on Earth and defend it. She'd had faith in them, but was it fair, expecting ordinary people to do what she did, with only the resources they had?

"That's the flip side, I s'pose," she said. "If seeing what damage travelling with us can do is the negative side, then seeing it bring out the best in people is the positive."

"And doesn't it do that!" he exclaimed. "We save people, and so do our friends. And then they save us, when we need it."

"Oh yeah," she agreed. "Over and over, they save us. And we remember them. We might not remember all of our own lives, but we remember them."

"Until the end of time, we will remember them," the Eleventh Doctor said, raising his chin, determined.

"Let's leave it there, shall we?" the Thirteenth Doctor said. "Thank you, Doctor. Needed that little blast of positivity."

"Any time."

He faded, and she moved on.

* * *

"This could be tricky," she said. "This one's very close to me becoming me, but very different too, in a lot of ways. Went back to being a grumpy old man again."

"Nothing wrong with that!" announced the Twelfth Doctor, solidifying. "But who are you supposed to be?"

He looked her up and down as their surroundings shifted to his TARDIS, bookshelves behind them, a chalkboard at his side.

"Hair like candyfloss and the clothes of a children's TV presenter? I said 'be kind, run fast,' not regress to early adolescence."

The Thirteenth Doctor rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on. Where's your sense of fun?"

"Buried under years of experience," he replied dryly. "I have fun! I just don't run around looking like a toddler that dressed itself."

"Oi! This outfit has pockets! Lots of pockets. I thought Missy's sniping was bad enough; don't need to hear it from myself as well. And you can hardly talk, Mister Sonic Sunglasses."

"Fine, fine, whatever. I just… it took a lot to let go from being the Doctor. I didn't expect -you- to follow on from me."

She raised an eyebrow, aware that the gesture was less impactful on her face than it was his.

"Meaning what, exactly? You don't know me."

"I _am_ you."

"And you're me. So why the fuss?"

He shrugged.

"Ah, never mind. Bill would've loved travelling with you."

The Thirteenth Doctor smiled.

"I know. Wouldn't change the friends I have, and have had, for anything, but I would've liked to have met Bill wearing this face. Wonder what Clara would've thought if I'd turned up instead of you? Me, Clara and Jane Austen, off saving the universe together."

"I'm not sure the universe would've survived that."

"Through River into the mix, and there definitely would've been fireworks."

The Twelfth Doctor frowned.

"Yes, quite. I doubt River would ever have calmed down from finding us as a woman."

The Thirteenth Doctor smiled again, thinking of meeting River in the Library datacore. How different would her wife's reaction have been if they'd met out in 'real life' instead? But, again, distractions.

"And as for 'be kind', I do my best. Almost to a fault. Too nice, me."

"Well, no-one's perfect. I took a while to remember how to be nice, to care again. I'd had enough of getting too tangled up in things to let go."

"Hmm. Fair point. But you did end up tangled again. All that time by the vault, looking after Missy-"

"I wasn't babysitting her," he argued. "I was keeping my word."

"I know. But you did keep it. Following on from the previous man spending hundreds of years defending a town, you spent decades standing guard over her. You said it was to keep the universe safe from her, but it was really to give her a chance to change. We hadn't lost hope, then."

"Then?" He picked up on her downward shift in tone, and she found she didn't want to discuss that, to tell him it had all been for nothing, that the Master had reverted on the latest regeneration.

"You had to have hope Missy could be saved, could be redeemed," she said instead. "Maybe because if there was hope for her, there was hope for everyone. That we might find forgiveness for everything we've ever done."

"Compared to them, we're practically a saint," the Twelfth Doctor retorted. "Certainly had to have the patience of one to get through some of those times."

"Back to that point again. How bad are the things we've done?" she asked. "The people we got killed, one way or another. Which one of us has the higher body count, in the end?"

"Well, that's a cheery thought. For all the rainbows and the pink hair, you can be quite gloomy, you know?" The Twelfth Doctor said, as he began pulling books off the shelves, leafing through them aimlessly.

"Been in here too long," she replied with a shrug. "I try to be positive, but you know what you just said about testing patience? Can't do much more of this nonsense."

"I'd have thought nonsense'd be right up your street."

"Usually, yeah." She smiled briefly. "So… other than 'not Missy', anything useful to add? Think I covered most of it with all the previous Doctors."

"Saving Gallifrey isn't enough? All those years thinking we destroyed it, only to undo it together?"

"I wasn't there for that," she pointed out. "But I do get to remember it. To… put it behind us isn't the right phrase. To accept it."

She forced herself not to think about Gallifrey, that it was gone despite all she and her previous selves had done to save it. Maybe, one day, she'd find a way to save it again. To restore it, to undo what had been done. A vain hope, but hope nonetheless. Something to strive for, before she was replaced by the next Doctor in line, something that might bring her peace. That was something for the 'intent versus action' judgement to read.

"And let's not forget, we once talked both Zygons and humans out of going to war with each other," the Twelfth Doctor pointed out. "I'd like to see anyone else do that."

"True. But you were also the one who seemed most prepared to let people die, for the greater good," the Thirteenth Doctor mused. "You spent quite a lot of time wondering if you were a good man, as well."

"With good reason," he replied. "Being a madman with a box is enough. No-one's perfect, but we tried our best, no?"

"Yeah."

"Remember what else I said. Never be cruel or cowardly, never give up, never give in."

"I do. Always been words to live by. Have been known to lose my temper a few times, let myself get angry, but I don't think I've ever been truly cruel. And while people have had to help me out more than a few times, I've never backed down when I was needed."

"Well, there you go. Isn't that enough for our judgey friends out there?" The Twelfth Doctor waved his hands.

"Maybe. Unless the point is to spend as much time as possible going over and over things until they decide it's enough. Can't be doing with that again. Although all the time I spent in prison was nothing compared to the confession dial…"

She trailed off but he just shrugged.

"At least that didn't feel as long as it was, resetting every time we completed a loop."

"Mmm. What was that even for, really?"

"What's anything 'for', in the end? Does that matter?"

"Dunno. I keep asking if what we've forgotten matters, or if we can live without it. Some things are best left forgotten, after all."

"And some things best remembered," he added. "Forgetting Clara… that was hard. We knew there was something missing, but couldn't quite grasp it."

"Yeah. I made a sort of collage, in the TARDIS. Memories, people, places. Anything important. Probably needs updating."

"Well, everyone needs a hobby."

"You had the guitar," she pointed out, glancing around the contents of the TARDIS console room. "Those before had recorders, spoons… I built a replacement sonic, as well. New and improved."

He raised the fearsome eyebrows.

"Had a lot of long, empty nights, did we?"

"Actually no. TARDIS blew up just after you'd gone, threw me out the doors. I was nearly stuck in 21st century Sheffield, had to build some tech to get back to the ship."

"Well, if you're going to get stuck in Sheffield, the 21st Century isn't the worst time to be."

"It's where I met my friends. You already had Clara there when you regenerated. I had to make friends as I went. Worked out okay though."

Another little pang at the thought of her lost 'fam'. Followed by a flutter of worry for her current travelling companion, what might be happening to her.

"Should probably hurry this up, if we can. Nearly at the end. Any last points you wanna make?"

"One last piece of advice, if you can call it that. Spending time in one place, with one person, isn't always that bad."

"You mean River? A night together on Darillium."

"You already know to appreciate your friends, when you have them. How much it hurts to lose them. But it might be worth remembering that you can slow down, and the universe won't end. Take the time, when you can, to stop and look around. Not necessarily like this," he gestured around.

"I know what you mean. But once I get out of here, the last thing I want is to stop still. Depends on how Serene feels, but I want something busy, huge, distracting."

"Well, there's no shortage of that in the universe," the Twelfth Doctor replied. "Good to know what you want, but be careful what you wish for."

"Oh, I know that."

"Then see you around, Doctor."

He smiled, and faded.

The Thirteenth Doctor paused. Was there anything she could do, or say, that would end this? A final boss to defeat, that would bring up 'Game Over'? What sort of a trial was this, anyway? Judge yourself… what did they expect to happen?

She sighed.

"Might as well. If we're gonna be completist about it."

* * *

She concentrated, and another figure appeared; a Black woman in a blue coat and matching waistcoat, a shirt of kente cloth underneath, and they were both standing outside the lighthouse.

"Didn't we do this already?" the Fugitive Doctor asked.

"I know," the Thirteenth Doctor replied. "But here we are again. Stuck in our own brain. Or something. Been thinking about trying the same trick as we pulled in the Matrix."

"Overloading it?"

"Yeah. But this- whatever this is- seems to be able to process a lot at once. Coping just fine with all of us."

"All at once?"

"Haven't dared try that yet. Don't want to blow my own mind by mistake."

"Then why am I here?"

"Because you represent everything I don't know about myself. You gave a good pep talk last time, and I've been okay with not knowing."

The Thirteenth Doctor suppressed the thought that this was a lie, and that if she had been 'okay' with not knowing, she'd never have tried to use the TARDIS to recover her lost memories, never met Serene, maybe wouldn't be here now? Who knew?

"But I need to go through that process again, in here, before there's a chance they'll let me go. No matter what their judgement is."

"You need to know whether you could've done something against your nature, and forgotten it?" The Doctor formerly known as 'Ruth' asked.

"Maybe. Can't be worse than what I do remember, though."

"But you're afraid it is. That the Division had you doing shady Time Lord business, the kind of thing that you ran away from."

The other Doctors began to solidify, frozen but no longer faded.

"So much of who we are stems from that decision," the Thirteenth Doctor replied, looking at her First self. "Leaving Gallifrey, becoming a traveller, intervening and interfering. Without that, we wouldn't be who we are, none of us."

"So what's changed? Me, the other people we've been… we don't affect that."

"I know. I _know_. But I keep coming back to this. Can't let it go, no matter how much I decide to. What if this trial reads that and keeps me looping round my on thoughts forever?"

"So don't let it," her unknown self replied, sharply. "None of us would, if you put it like that. It just so happens that you're the one they caught, so this is how it's gone. Finish this. Now."

They stared at each other.

"Fine. _Fine_. Let's do this."

The Thirteenth Doctor turned to the line of all her past selves, the lighthouse vanishing and the endless dark nothing returning.

"Come on then! All of us, together. Who wants to try a prison break?"

Immediately, all the Doctors came to life, and each in their own way, they began to protest. It started relatively orderly, but, as she'd know it would, it quickly degenerated into chaos.

"If _ma'at_ is order and _isfet_ is chaos," the Thirteenth Doctor announced, to herself and to those running this trial. "Let's see how you cope with both of those at once, from all of me."

And she joined in. The Doctor, all her former and potential selves, yelling into the void.

/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: not mine, etc.
> 
> This was fun to write but really hard! I'm sure there's huge amounts from all previous Doctors I could've included, but I tried not to be just a list, or to contradict canon much (which is complicated at the best of times).
> 
> The next chapters will cover what's been happening while the Doctor's been going through her 'trial' and why the Ma'at cult came after her in the first place.
> 
> Let me know what you think so far?


	6. Chapter 6

Meanwhile:

Serene awoke, in the strange space that was both inside her own head and a place created by the Ma'at cult, whoever they were.

For a moment, there was nothing, literally nothing around her. Then the representation of Ma'at appeared, still masked and inscrutable.

"So what now?" Serene demanded. Perhaps because this was inside her own head, all that she'd read about the Earth culture this was based on came back to her more easily.

"You rake over my life, decide if I'm worthy and if not, you'll feed my heart to the Devourer?"

"There is no Devourer. We do not kill."

"Then what is the point?"

"Judgement is the point. It is all there is, and without us, true judgement is rare."

"So you say. But what does that _mean?_ Am I to list all forty-two points of Ma'at, before I'm judged? Let's start with _'I have done no harm, nor have I done evil'_ , shall we? Or how about _'I have not stopped my ears against the words of right and truth?'_ Because those are true, for me and the Doctor. We're not evil, and we always try and do the right thing, to help people."

But Ma'at did not respond to Serene's rising anger.

"The 42 points were of their time. We have our own methods. We invoke no deities-"

"But you wear their likenesses," Serene interrupted. "The Egyptian culture that created this trial has been dust for millennia. The people moved on, created new laws. What in all the worlds made you choose this?"

"It suited our needs. A balance; not purity, not without wrongdoing, but balanced."

"And who decides?"

"You do."

And the Ma'at figure faded away.

Startled, Serene whirled around, expecting something else to loom from the darkness at her. But still there was nothing.

"I judge myself?" she asked, aloud.

"Well then, let's see which ones I can remember… _'I have not stolen.'_ That's true. _'I have not spoken lies.'_ Well, nothing important, that I remember. _'I have not caused terror, nor done that which is abominable.'_ We can leave out the ones about angering a god…"

But then she thought over the rest of the points.

_"I have not burned with rage."_

That wasn't true. The Doctor had told her it was all right to be angry, so long as you used the anger, but didn't give into it, didn't let it push you into doing something you'd regret, or use it as an excuse to do bad things. And for the most part, she'd taken that advice.

_"I have not avenged myself."_

There were times when she could have, back in the Zinariyan Alliance. She could have found those who'd killed her family, and made them pay. Sometimes it worried at the back of her mind that she could still do that.

And she had shot people, twice. Hadn't killed either of them, but she had hurt them, intentionally. On Taer Prime, the man had been attacking her and the Doctor, and Serene had defended them, but on Ksako, the guard Adams... The first time had been to escape but the second had been because his sadism sickened her, and she wanted him to suffer for it. Serene knew that was wrong, had known then and hadn't cared enough not to pull the trigger. But she hadn't killed him, and she could have. So if this was about balance, then yes, she'd caused harm, but she hadn't done it for fun, and she'd stopped herself going too far.

Another point came to mind.

_"I have never magnified my condition beyond what was fitting."_

And out of the darkness, something began to form. Not a memory, but something she thought of often, had done ever since she'd found out who she was, who she could have been, what others wanted her to be.

Growing up in an Order that prized knowledge, wisdom and learning, Serene had never had fantasies of being a secret princess, of being swept away from her quiet life to a world of luxury and riches. What she had dreamed of, and had gotten when she met the Doctor, was of adventure and excitement, of travel and experience.

And when that had been interrupted by the discovery that she was actually of 'royal blood,' that had become a nightmare. She'd never wanted power, but that didn't mean that somewhere, hidden deep inside her, she hadn't been tempted by the thought that, had she accepted the role of Regnant of the Zinariyan people ( _empire, her mind reminded her, you would've been an empress_ ), she might have done some good. The people behind the coup hadn't intended to let her have any genuine power, but what if she could have changed that? Managed somehow to make a difference to her people?

In front of her manifested a vision. Regnant Serene - no, Aster, that was the name her mother, the Regnant Adelais, would have chosen for her - standing on the balcony of the City Hall before a cheering crowd of her people, those who loved her for all she'd done for them, her wise and fair ruling of them all.

Serene watched her thoughts take form. It was unpleasant to be confronted with this. She'd dismissed these ideas as a silly daydream, but they went deeper. She wanted to fix things, to shape them to how she thought they should be, and what kind of arrogance was that? A woman of just twenty-one years old thinking she knew better than those already in power? Not the coup, they were repressive, wanting to keep people down, and stopping them had been unquestionably right, but…

She still thought she could be a good ruler, deep down. That she could make things better for people.

While she travelled with the Doctor, that wasn't that strange a thought; after all, the Doctor tore down corrupt empires on a regular basis. But the Doctor had never stayed to rule over those she liberated, while Serene still wondered if leaving the planet she'd been born on was the right thing to do.

A series of images flashed through her - all the thing she could do, the things she could set right, freeing people across the universe from oppression, bringing hope to those in need, changing history for the better, getting rid of corrupt rulers and… and what else? Everything. She could do everything. The Doctor had her rules, her ways of doing things, but what could Serene do, given the opportunity? What would she do?

Refuting the 42 points, begun almost sarcastically, had been forgotten, and Serene got caught up in a whirl of all the things she'd ever done, ever said. The worry for the Doctor, who must be undergoing the same thing, nagged at her, but she couldn't spare much thought for that as her life surrounded her.

At first, Serene hadn't thought she'd done much to be judged on, not compared with others, but she wasn't exactly innocent, and she knew it. And mixed in with that was the thought of what she would do, what she could do, and what that said about her.

And then there was the guilt. That she'd survived, when all the rest of her family, her blood relations, had been murdered. She'd been a baby, had known nothing of this, but still there was guilt. The feeling that the coup in the Zinariyan Alliance was partly her fault wouldn't go away either, no matter how irrational it was. And then there were the other 'what ifs?'

What if the Architects of Revolution, having failed to get her infant self out of the Cerebral Order by force, had sent in agents to win her away, by other methods? The Doctor had only had to offer her a place in the TARDIS for her to leave, and Serene probably would've done the same for almost anyone, back then, she'd been so desperate to travel, to experience life elsewhere. All they would have needed to do was send her a ticket for passage off the moon, and she would probably have accepted it, regardless of whether they'd told her anything about her past or their intentions. Fortunately they hadn't thought to do that, so wrapped up in their grand plans, decades in the making.

And then…

Serene remembered being in the Library, when Missy had approached her, and her own thought of what she would have done if it had been Missy who came to the Order and offered her a way to see the universe. Would she have accepted? Unless Missy had come in all guns blazing, setting off her own grand plans and evil schemes, Serene probably would have, and she knew this.

The pictures in front of her, which had been spinning from her childhood memories to imagined scenarios, changed briefly to the Library. Instantly, the memories from Missy's mind began to spring up, tangled with those Serene had unintentionally absorbed from the Doctor.

Images of Gallifrey, of a city encased in glass, of silvered trees and red grass, surrounded her. Not just pictures, but memories, lived experiences, of running through streets, laughing, a friend by your side.

Serene couldn't tell whose memory that was; they blurred together so that she knew the children running side by side were the Doctor and the Master/Missy, whatever they were known as back then. Even with the memories, those original names stayed hidden, too private to be shared with someone like her, no matter how close she'd become to the Doctor and how much Missy wanted to mess with her mind.

Missy's memories span on, and just as Serene was wondering if the machine she was attached to could tell these weren't her own memories, there was a blinding flash, a sharp pain in her head and her heart, and everything went away.

* * *

Dazed, she came back to the real world, such as it was, and the awareness that the electrodes attached to her temples were being roughly yanked from her by the jackel-headed figure, Anubis. Confused, Serene looked around, realising that the other deity representatives had withdrawn, out of sight, and that she couldn't see the Doctor past the figure in front of her.

"What-? What's going on? Is the trial over?"

"How do you have those memories?" Anubis shouted at her, fury vivid even through the mask and the robes that covered him entirely. "Tell me!"

"I- what?"

He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her but she was still restrained, couldn't move at all.

"How did you get them?"

"They were given to me… the Doctor-"

"No, not those, I don't give a damn about those. I mean _mine._ You have _my_ memories in your head."

And with a sudden jolt of utter horror, Serene realised what was happening, who was under the mask, even before he stepped back and removed it.

He appeared to be a man in his thirties, with light brown skin and black hair, brown eyes, looked to be human, but he wasn't, any more than he was the age he looked, any more than the Doctor was.

"The Master… you're the Master."

Even though she'd met this Time Lord before, in a different incarnation, and not come off too badly, Serene realised she was terrified. The Master was in some of the worst of the Doctor's memories, and no amount of innocent recollection of childhood play would counteract that.

The Master seemed pleased by her fear, as with her recognition of him, discarding the rage as easily as he did the mask and gloves.

"That I am. So who are you, then?"

Serene glanced over to the glass cage next to her, where the Doctor was still restrained, unconscious, her trial ongoing.

"Don't worry about her. She'll be ages yet. I told them how to keep her occupied."

He leaned in, hands on the arms of the chair she was bound to.

"And answer my question. How - do you - have - my memories?"

The Master's face was inches from hers and Serene couldn't look away. She forced herself to try and calm, to not think about what might happen.

"You gave them to me. I -"

"No. No, no, no, no, no."

He raised one hand, brushed her hair from her face, where it had come down from the headband in all the struggles since the bloodhounds had first shown up on Earth.

"That's impossible. Because they're _my_ memories, and _I_ don't remember doing that. So how do _you_ remember, and _I_ can't?"

Serene wanted to look over to the Doctor again, but she knew it was useless. Rescue was not likely, and if the Master was somehow part of this Ma'at cult, then the other members wouldn't help her either.

"How does one of the Doctor's little friends have _my_ memories in her tiny brain?"

He poked a finger to her forehead, twisting it as if he could screw it down through her skull.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. We met before, when you were-" Serene hesitated. What was safe to reveal? But the Doctor had only said that Missy shouldn't remember, not this Master.

"When I was what?"

"Missy. You were Missy. You found me in the Library, recognised me as a friend of the Doctor. You threatened to kill me, to kill everyone in the Library-"

He gave a snort of laughter.

"That does sound like me,"

"And when I told you I'd absorbed some of the Doctor's memories, you gave me some of yours."

He let her go, stepping back, staring at her with suspicious eyes.

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. She didn't say. I didn't even discover what most of those memories were for days."

"And why don't I remember that happening?"

Serene hesitated again. Should she say? But she didn't need to.

The Master folded his arms.

"Let me guess. Our mutual friend interfered, in that _spectacularly_ irritating way that she does."

He turned toward the Doctor, slamming his palm against the wall of the box in fury, leaning on the glass, staring at his enemy.

" _You're_ supposed to be the one with the missing memories. And even here, when I've got you locked inside your own brain, reliving everything you've ever done, you _still_ manage to do this to me."

He banged his forehead against the glass, frustration and anger radiating from him.

Serene's heart was still racing, and she tried to take a calming breath, but she found she was more afraid here than she had been before, barring the time she nearly got executed for witchcraft. The Doctor was still trapped within her trial, unconscious and vulnerable. What would the Master do?

"I still can't remember it, even now I know they exist. What did she do?"

"I don't know. She made me wait outside."

"Ha!"

The Master slammed his hand against the glass again, then spun around.

"She always has to have the moral high ground against me, but I've got her on this one. She knew memory manipulation was a violation, but that didn't stop her. Bet she said it was to preserve the timelines or some such nonsense."

Serene remained quiet, still trying to think of some way out of this.

"Never mind. I can get them back now, and I don't even have to take them from your brain the hard way."

The Master picked up the electrodes, put one back on her temple, put the other to his own.

"So you can't resist, or try and give me a false memory. They've already been pulled out by this."

He laughed out loud, the chaos she'd glimpsed in them before leaking out again. Serene tried to force down the memory, but he was right, she couldn't, and the day in the Library, which had passed in a flash within the trial, appeared before her inward eye. Presumably the Master saw it the same way - not as a projection, not surrounded by it as within the trial-space, but as if it was being played out in their heads.

It wasn't that long. They met, they talked - threatened, in Missy's case - and the Doctor arrived. They argued, and then Missy went back to her TARDIS. The Doctor went with her, using some kind of knock-out drops to render Missy unconscious and dragging her into the ship. What happened behind closed doors, Serene couldn't say, but the Master played the memory on, through the Doctor telling Serene that she hadn't hurt Missy, just stopped her remembering.

"Huh. Still don't know why she'd do that, give you our memories. Let's try again."

And he pushed harder, forcing the implanted memories to the surface so he could examine them. This time, it hurt.

Serene struggled to keep control, to remind herself that she'd faced danger before and survived, that 'this too will pass', the calming mantra she chanted in times of stress. But nothing worked. It was like being trapped in a room with a Dalek, only more unpredictable. A Dalek - not that she'd met one yet - would kill you as soon as look at you, but the Master? Maybe he'd kill her, maybe he'd kill everyone, maybe he'd think of something worse.

_'He burned Gallifrey,'_ she thought, and that image, from the Doctor's memories, sprang up too, mixing in with all he was extracting from her. Serene's own memories too, like reading her mind only worse. When Missy had read her, it'd been through her recall device, and while putting the memories in hadn't been nice, this was far worse.

The Master flinched, pulling the electrode off.

"God, she really is in your head, isn't she? Not me, not Missy. _Her._ "

He turned to look back at the Doctor, who was moving slightly, as if dreaming.

"She gets into everything. There's a part of her in me, did you know that? Wired into my DNA, so deep I can't ever dig it out."

His tone burned with hatred, and Serene assumed he would've said the same thing even if she herself hadn't been present. She was a convenient sounding board, an audience, and other than her possible usefulness, she barely existed to him. Maybe she could make use of that, get him to overlook her enough that she could escape. Although he was unlikely to ignore the Doctor enough that she could rescue her.

"I don't want her memories as well. You can keep those."

He turned to the equipment, pressing buttons.

"That must've confused their system. Some kid running around with thousands of years of memories that aren't hers in her brain. Good job I pulled you out early, or you might've broken it like I did."

Serene couldn't hide her surprise.

"You were on trial here?"

The Master made a derisive noise.

"That was what they wanted. Don't think they'd come across someone who tipped the scales quite as far as I did before, let alone someone who didn't care. And that was after I'd got rid of the Cyberium. This machine measures guilt, have you figured that out?"

Serene realised this was true. Why else had she fixated on her feelings about surviving when her family did not, and things she could have done, but chose not to? Not to mention all the possible scenarios for the future she'd thought of.

"So when I say I told these people how to keep the Doctor occupied, you understand what that means?"

They both looked over at the Doctor, Serene rapidly realising just what was going on. The Ma'at cult had targeted them because the Master had told them to, as part of his vendetta against the Doctor, and he must've told them exactly how to do it. He knew how much guilt the Doctor carried with her because he knew her, far better than Serene ever could.

"If I'm honest, I doubt she's ever coming out of there. That one could keep spiralling around all the things she feels guilt over until the stars burn out."

"And you?" Serene found a seam of bravery within and drew on it, confronting him. "Do you feel guilt over anything you did?"

"Don't be stupid," he snapped back. "That was _her_ , the one before me, Missy. Grew a conscience or something, started trying to be good."

"Whereas you burned your homeworld to ashes."

"And turned the corpses of my people into Cybermen," the Master replied, his voice flat. "What's your point?"

Serene stared back at him, a million questions filling her mind. But this wasn't the time.

"I'm trying to work out what you want."

"What do I want? What I want, is to see _her_ suffer."

He jabbed his finger toward the still unconscious Doctor.

"And this time, I don't want to take over a planet, or amass an army. No grand, complex plan. I just want to hurt her."

His tone chilled Serene to the bone.

"These people, with their ridiculous notions of justice, balance, whether the intentions of your heart can weigh the actions of your life… they created the ideal trap and they didn't even know it. A torture machine I couldn't have tailored more perfectly for the Doctor if I tried."

He waved a dismissive hand in Serene's direction.

"You, you don't matter, I don't care about you. How you came to have my memories was a surprise, but I should've know it'd be her, the one before me."

"If it's any consolation," Serene spoke up, trying to keep her voice steady. "Missy didn't seem to have much of a conscience when I met her."

"But she was visiting that Song woman, the Doctor's wife. Why would she do that?"

"It sounded like they were friends. Or at least that River was an adversary that Missy enjoyed encountering."

The Master thought that over, pulling a 'whatever' face. He pulled off the Anubis robes, revealing plain black clothing underneath, nothing like what she'd seen him wear in the Doctor's memories.

"Doesn't matter. What does, is-"

He leaned in again, eyes boring into Serene's.

"What are we going to do now?"

She tried not to shudder.

"I mean, I was going to watch for a bit, then head off, find something more entertaining, once I was sure the Doctor was stuck here. But now…"

He started to remove the rest of the attachments linking Serene to the machinery.

"I've had a brilliant idea."

"Does it involve letting me go?" Serene asked, as he took off her manacles.

He gave another short bark of laughter.

"Good one. No."

He pulled her to her feet and out of the box, looking over her purple flapper dress and 1920s shoes.

"Seeing as how you dressed for dancing… "

He put one arm around her waist, the other holding her hand as if they were partnering.

"Love the colour, by the way. Usually it's me all dressed up, but I needed the disguise this time."

Serene, revolted, tried to push him away, but he held her in a tight grip.

"I wouldn't make too much of a fuss, love. Everyone here is on my side, and if you try and fight me, or to run, they'll probably just kill you."

He spun them around, a parody of a waltz, moving them closer to the Doctor's prison. Desperately trying to find a way out, Serene used the opportunity as best she could to look around. The Horus guards lined the hall, though the Ma'at figure, Thoth, Isis and Osiris had disappeared. Somehow, the Master had control over them.

"And if you annoy me too much, I might change my mind and just kill her while she's unconscious," the Master was saying. "Not as satisfying, but being sure she's dead might be better than leaving her here to be tortured indefinitely."

"So… what's your brilliant idea?"

He laughed again, but there was no humour in the sound.

"I'm thinking about taking you with me. I don't travel with a pet the way the Doctor does, but it might be fun, stealing you from her."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

He spun them again, slamming Serene up against the glass of the box and pinning her against it, his hands either side of her.

"You still don't get it, do you? This is about making the Doctor suffer, and if she ever comes out of there, then I want her to know that I stole you, and she couldn't stop me."

"And then what? You drag me around a bit, then kill me when you get bored?"

"It's like you're inside my head," he said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Oh wait, other way around."

He put two fingers from his right hand against her left temple.

"So don't push me, or I can slip right back in and leave something a lot nastier in there than a few memories."

Serene stared back at him, defiance growing. She was still terrified, but she wasn't tied up anymore. That meant there was a chance, even with all the Master's threats.

"No."

"No?"

"No, I won't go with you. If you're going to kill me, just do it here."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Serene tried to push him away again, but he grabbed her wrists and held her.

"Come on, think it through. I've got a load of armed guards on my side, and you don't even know what planet we're on, let alone how to get out of here."

"So I should just give up?" Serene snapped back. "You've seen some of my memories, do I seem like the type to do that?"

"You're not as stupid as some of her little friends have been, I can see that much," he replied, eyes boring into hers. "Not human, for a start. I really don't understand her obsession with that planet. It's fun to start up some of my plans there, but it's like poking an anthill; eventually you just want to stomp on it. Mostly just because it annoys her."

"They've stopped you, though, haven't they? Not just the Doctor, the humans."

Serene thought that'd make him angry, but the Master just laughed, letting go of her hands and gesturing to one of the guards.

"Are you trying to provoke me? You?"

"Do you even know anything about me? Even after being in my head?"

"What does that matter?"

He took a handgun from the guard who approached.

"You're all pretty much interchangeable, in the end. You die, or you leave, she gets sad, and then she moves onto the next one."

The Master pressed the gun to her forehead. Serene stared back, her fear peculiarly fading. She didn't want to die, of course not, but this, _this_ she could deal with. An actual, tangible threat, not just the fear of what might happen.

For a moment, they stared at each other, unblinking. The Master moved his finger over the trigger, as if trying it out, seeing if he wanted to pull it. Then he took the gun away.

"No. No fun at all. But I know what I can do to change your mind."

He shoved her into the arms of the waiting guard, then opened the door to the Doctor's prison. Her trial was still ongoing, the machinery flashing and beeping as it worked inside her brain. Serene wondered what her friend was seeing, but this was a fleeting concern when the Master pressed the gun to the Doctor's head.

"Say you'll come with me, or I shoot her."

"Why would you do that?" Serene threw back, not believing him. "All that'd do is make her regenerate."

"Not if I kept shooting, destroyed the brain stems. I don't think even she, the super-special Timeless Child of unknown origin, could survive that. And if she did, then I'm sure I could think up some really, really inventive ways of making sure she didn't for long."

"But…" Serene tried to understand. "You can't really want her dead."

"I don't want anything else," the Master spat. "Watching her suffer, yeah, that's fun. But if I could finally, _finally_ end all this. I could win."

He turned to look at his unconscious enemy and his whole frame emanated rage and hatred.

"It was always gonna end this way. One of us killing the other."

"But you need her," Serene said, uncertainty rising. "She might be the only other Time Lord left. You've been fighting so long, what would you even do without her?"

"Dunno. Shall we find out?"

In one quick movement, he cracked the gun against the Doctor's skull, her head snapping back under the blow. Serene gasped in shock, tried to step forward, but the guard held her firmly, another joining them to stop her trying to go to her friend.

A trickle of blood ran down the Doctor's forehead, and Serene began to wonder if her estimation of the Master was completely wrong. The memories in her head said he wouldn't go through with it, but then they were from the Doctor or the previous Masters, not this one. Maybe he really had reached his limit and wanted her dead, really dead. Yes, of course he'd tried to kill her before, but setting up a grand plan wasn't the same as shooting her in the head, in cold blood.

The Master turned back to Serene.

"Changed your mind yet?"

Serene's mind raced, but she could think of nothing. There was no way out of this.

"You really mean it? You'll kill her if I say no, but if I say yes, you'll leave her alone?"

"D'you know, I think I do mean it. Isn't that odd?"

He raised the gun again and Serene, struggling against the people holding her, cried out.

"No! Don't hurt her!"

The Master's triumphant smile was terrible to behold.

"I knew it. You might not be human, but you're just like the rest of them."

"You mean I care about my friend? That isn't a bad thing."

"Course it is. It makes you weak."

"Caring about the Doctor doesn't make me weak. She's made me stronger than anyone or anything else could."

"Don't be pathetic. You've only got the one heart, and you insist on filling it up with useless sentiment."

"Then why do this? Why make me agree? You could have your friends drag me anywhere, you don't need me to say yes. You don't even want me around."

The Master shrugged, the gun still pointing at the Doctor.

"I'm gonna need some kind of distraction, once this is done. You might be entertaining for a little while, in some way or another."

Serene, beyond horrified, couldn't think of an answer to that.

"Come on, say it. I want to hear you say it."

"Yes!"

It came out louder than Serene intended, the word echoing around the Hall.

"I'll come with you. If you leave her alone."

"That's all I needed."

The Master stepped out of the box and gestured again to the waiting Horus guards, one of whom came closer, bringing a bloodhound with them.

"Course, I'm gonna need a bit of help getting us away from here. I got brought here by teleport, same as you, which means no TARDIS for either of us. However…"

He reached down and took the glowing collar from the neck of the bloodhound, the guard handing him the correlating control device.

"Oh, I almost forgot."

He went back into the Doctor's cell and took the sonic screwdriver from her pocket. He tucked strands of her rose-gold hair back as he whispered something in her ear. His manner was casual now, all trace of rage vanished, hidden.

"Was the outfit your idea?" he asked Serene, coming back to her. "Haven't seen her without the rainbows for a long time."

"We went to a party," Serene replied. Realising that this was really happening, that she had to leave the Doctor and go with this man now, her whole demeanour was deflated, resigned and that only seemed to make the Master happier.

The Master used the sonic on the collar, opening it, and reached out to put it around Serene's throat. She tried to pull away, but the guards held her.

"What are you doing?"

"It need to be worn, to activate the teleport function. How else are we going to get back to the TARDIS?"

Horrified, Serene stared back at him.

"You… what do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know where mine is, and the return function doesn't store that information for long. It'll remember where hers is, and you can take us both there."

"No!"

She struggled, but the Master forced the collar around her neck, snapping it closed and using the control device to activate it. There was a fizz of energy in the air, and the guards released her as the Master stepped up close, grabbing her arms.

"Hold on tight now, here we go!"

Serene just had time for one last glimpse of her best friend, still unconscious and trapped inside the glass box, before there was a flash of light, and they vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUN! So... was it obvious that the Master was behind everything, or a surprise?  
> Please let me know what you think? (no reviews so far)


	7. Chapter 7

The Master and Serene appeared on the lawn in front of the house, where the portals had first opened. Thankfully, there was no-one around to endanger, the artists' commune all hiding or fled. Serene wondered how long had it been, from their perspective, since she and the Doctor had been taken.

The Master paid no attention to their surroundings, focusing on locating the TARDIS. Without really thinking what she was doing, Serene made a run for it. She didn't want to risk the safety of the commune, but maybe the Master wouldn't care about them. And he couldn't threaten the Doctor anymore...

The Master didn't even try pursuing her, just took out the Doctor's sonic. There was a whirring sound, and immediately a terrible shocking pain shot through Serene, emanating from the collar he'd put around her neck, knocking her down.

"Stop wasting time!" he snapped. He saw the TARDIS, half-hidden behind the water feature and headed straight for it, pulling Serene to her feet and dragging her along with him.

"Will the TARDIS even let you in?" Serene asked. Her mind was spinning, trying to accept what was happening, to think of a way to stop it, to change it.

"How can it stop me?" he asked. "I programmed these -" he tapped her collar "- to phase straight through the doors, bypassing any TARDIS security."

Serene realised that was how the bloodhounds had gotten inside in the first place, something she hadn't understood previously. The Master's interference made sense of a lot of things.

They reached the doors, and blue light flared all around them as the Master pushed her straight through the doors, not even opening them, following her in.

The cloister bell immediately began to toll again as the TARDIS realised what was happening, but the Master only beamed.

"She recognises me!"

Shoving Serene aside, he went straight to the console and began to programme their departure.

"Doesn't always do that, especially when I've got a new face."

"You've been on board before?" Serene asked, leaning against a column.

"Oh, we're old friends. Spent a whole year together once, didn't we, love?" he said to the ship, patting part of the console. "I mean, time rewound, but we both remember it, don't we?"

Distressed sounds came from the machine, but he ignored them.

"And they have to obey any Time Lord who pilots them."

He threw the lever, and they dematerialised.

"Where are we going?"

The Master didn't look up from the console, just raised the sonic and shocked her again. She buckled, holding onto the column for support, gasping in pain.

"Don't start that. I'm not having you bleating questions at me all the time. Shut up, until I speak to you."

Serene took a moment to catch her breath.

"Can I at least change my clothes?"

_"What did I just say?"_

He zapped her again, and this time she couldn't hold back a cry, almost falling. But then the Master reconsidered her words.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. I need something better than this. Show me the wardrobe."

The Master, for all that he professed to find Serene irritating, wouldn't let her out of his sight.

"I know what the Doctor's friends are like. I turn my back for one minute and you'll run off somewhere. I can't be bothered with chasing you round the insides of a TARDIS, that could take years. So I'll just point out that you can't take that collar off, and that the range on this-" he raised the Doctor's sonic "- is far enough that I could probably kill you no matter where you are. So consider that your warning."

He spent a lot of time raking through the wardrobe, dismissing almost everything as ridiculous. At first, Serene was uncomfortable with the idea of changing her clothes in front of the Master, but he paid no attention while she swapped her 1920's dress for a pair of dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt, a long black jacket and sensible flat-heeled boots, (because no matter what happened, she wanted to be able to run).

The Master, trying on a series of coats and tossing each of them aside, glanced over at her as she tied her long black hair back in a high ponytail.

"Huh. Makes you look like Yaz."

The name rang a bell, but Serene couldn't place it.

"One of the Doctor's last set of friends," the Master said, answering her unasked question. "I mean, she was human, but you remind me of her."

A picture appeared in Serene's head; three humans, standing together, the Doctor calling them her 'fam.' A memory the Doctor hadn't quite erased from Serene's head, too recent a farewell, too raw and painful to discuss.

"Where did she pick you up, anyway? Haven't seen her travel with anyone not human for ages, unless you count that person he rebuilt. Never was sure what to call that one."

"What do you care?" Serene replied, testing him. Would he keep shouting and hurting her, or would he get bored and leave her alone? He was so unpredictable, mercurial. But he just smirked.

"Alright, love, keep your hair on," he replied. "It's only a question. If we're gonna travel together, you might at least try being civil."

"While you keep me collared like a dog? Am I a person or a pet?"

"What's the difference?"

He laughed, while Serene folded her arms, her anger clear in her expression.

"Oh, don't be like that. You know what I mean; anything less than Time Lord might as well be a bug on the windscreen. How long do your species even live?"

"I've no idea."

"Oh, wait, I saw some of this, in your memories. You're a foundling." He laughed at the word, though Serene couldn't comprehend why. "Raised by space nuns. No wonder the Doctor took a liking to you. What was all that stuff in your head about being a queen, or something?"

Serene flinched. That was _private_. She didn't want him seeing that. On the other hand, if he already knew, why not use it?

She stared back at him, holding eye contact despite her discomfort.

"The correct term is Regnant. Ruler of the Zinariyan Alliance. Although the Architects wanted to re-establish the Empire, so I suppose 'Empress' works too."

The Master burst into uproarious laughter.

"Oh, that is _perfection_. You're an empress?"

Serene shrugged. She took the crown shaped pin, the symbol of the Regnant family, from her discarded dress, putting it on her jacket. Her mother had given it to her, not knowing that Serene was really her daughter, visiting from the future. Serene wore it because it was the only thing she had from them, not because of what it represented.

"Rightful heir, by blood. I didn't accept the throne, though."

She didn't go into any more detail; that part of her life was too confusing and upsetting to share with someone like the Master.

"Course you didn't. I can only imagine the Doctor's face when she found out." Another thought occurred to him. "And what would you do if I took you back there now, to the place you could've ruled?"

"I'd run."

Serene flicked her gaze down to the sonic he still held in one hand.

"The range on that thing can't be three whole planets."

The Master stared back at her.

"Good to know."

He returned his attention to the coats, picking up a black leather jacket and sniffing it.

"Hmm. Don't think I ever met this one. He was around when I was… undercover. Might have to go back and rectify that."

He threw the coat aside.

"So. Many. Frock. Coats. And cravats! Why was the Doctor so obsessed with cravats? And tweed. I'm not a librarian or a university professor, not right now anyway. Never mind. Monochrome'll do for now."

He put on a white shirt, black trousers and waistcoat with a long black coat.

"I'm not usually one for minimalist, but I haven't decided what mood I'm in yet."

He checked his reflection in the mirror.

"It'll do. So come on, then. Where should we go first?"

/

* * *

The Doctor, all her former and potential selves were still yelling into the void when the Ma'at personification reappeared. Immediately, the Thirteenth Doctor was the only version of herself remaining, facing the masked figure.

"About time! Couldn't take much more of that," the Doctor said. "Have you come to let us out, then?"

Ma'at seemed less confident, hesitant almost.

"Things have not gone as they should have."

"I dread to think what they were supposed to be like," the Doctor replied, keeping her tone light though her mood wasn't. "What was the point of all that? Thought I was gonna keep looping around forever."

"That was what he wanted. To keep you here, stuck in your memories. I managed to subvert it a little, make it closer to the trial you should have had. But now he's gone…"

A shiver went down the Doctor's spine.

"What do you mean? He who?"

Ma'at raised her arms, and the dark vanished.

* * *

Once more, the Doctor awoke. There were Horus guards removing electrodes from her, taking off her restraints and helping her up. Disorientated, she stood, wondering what had happened to her regular clothes.

'Oh, yeah. Lost them a while back. Picked these for a party. My feet are cold.'

Her head hurt too; there was a lump on her forehead she didn't remember getting.

She looked around the Hall, seeing it for the first time. As she exited the box, the Ma'at figure approached, removing the mask and feathered headband. Behind was a dark-skinned woman, long black hair twisted into tight braids, with gold thread woven into them. Her eyes were outlined in gold, and the look of uncertainty within them didn't sit well with her appearance.

"Doctor. It seems we… there has been… something is not right."

"Which bit?" The Doctor tried to keep her temper. "Abducting me and putting me on trial?"

"No, that would have been our intent even without-"

"Where's my friend? Is she still on Earth?"

"We brought her here, but-" Ma'at was still struggling to put into words. "The spell is broken, though I still feel I'm not supposed to say…"

The Doctor's suspicions grew stronger, alongside fear for her friend.

"Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened."

The Doctor was no longer surprised when they told her of the Master.

In short, he had gotten the cult's attention - unsurprisingly - and they had brought him to the Hall of the Two Truths for judgement. But during his trial he had overloaded the machinery, broken the control they had over him and somehow reversed it, using it to gain some form of dominance over his captors.

"Doesn't surprise me," the Doctor muttered. "Never known him be able to go this long without trying to hypnotise anyone."

"He used our ways against us, made us think he was Anubis when really he was Set, the storm god, or Apep, god of chaos."

"You got the chaos bit right. More Sutekh than Set, though that's another story for anther time."

The Master had sent the bloodhounds after the Doctor, working his way through all of their computer systems so he could use and manipulate them for his own ends, using his knowledge of the TARDIS to allow the dogs to break into the ship. The only place Ma'at had been able to undermine his control was within the Doctor's trial itself, playing out almost as it was originally intended, less of the torture the Master wanted.

"He wanted me to replay the worst moments of my lives, over and over, yeah?" the Doctor said. "And now he's taken my best friend with him, probably stolen my ship too."

She paced, trying not to panic, to think of what to do.

"No link to Serene, no sonic, can't get to the TARDIS. They could be anywhere, any time. How can I find them?"

While some of the Ma'at followers started to sift through the contents of the Doctor's trial, she got another to show her all their recordings, from the Master's arrival to her own, to the moment the Master woke Serene up and took her away.

"He saw his own memories in her head. Damn it. I never saw that coming. What else did he see?"

Uncomfortable at invading her friend's privacy, she looked through the records of Serene's trial, hoping for a clue as to where he may have taken her. But she found nothing of use, only memories and conjecture on Serene's part, things she felt guilt over and was afraid of. Things the Doctor and Serene had argued about when they'd first started travelling together, the same argument she had with everyone she travelled with - about fixed points, things you shouldn't try and change, no matter how much you wanted to. And Serene wondering what she would do if this restraint was no longer there.

The Doctor summoned Ma'at back down, confronting her.

"So this machine reads guilt about things you haven't even done? Intentions, yeah? Does anyone ever pass?"

Ma'at's gold-rimmed eyes flashed in anger.

"Those who fail are given lessons in how to change for the better, to correct the balance. The worst we have to imprison here, in the _Duat_ , so they cause no more harm. We don't feed their hearts to Ammit the Devourer."

"I'm sure that sentence made sense to someone. But right now, I don't really care about any of that. I need to find my friend before he hurts her, or worse."

Ma'at didn't respond, no doubt still smarting at how easily the organisation she headed had been hoodwinked by one of their subjects.

Despite all the Doctor's searches, the location of the Master's TARDIS proved unknown, even the place he'd been picked up deleted.

"That's a stupid way of doing things," the Doctor muttered, struggling to keep a handle on things. "Do you never take anyone back to where you found them?"

"The portals take them to a place where they can best atone, to redress the balance," the follower assigned to her replied. "Travellers such as yourself are rare."

"But where and when my TARDIS was, that hadn't been erased. And he definitely opened a portal there?"

"Yes. We could take you there too, if that would help?"

"Bit late now. I don't even have my sonic to… don't know what I'd do even if I had it. Can't track the TARDIS through all of time and space. Though I 'spose I'd better give it a try."

The Doctor went through their systems set-up, and they let her work undisturbed. Letting the Master manipulate them had upset the balance of the entire organisation, and they hoped to redress it by helping her find Serene. Not that the Doctor cared in the slightest, but her friend's trial had found that she was essentially in balance, not a total innocent but sufficiently good in intention to meet their standards. They were still going through everything from the Doctor's, no doubt would be for a while.

Time was the difficult bit; the portal tech was, as she'd said to herself, more like cut 'n' paste than the kind of time travel the Doctor herself was used to, and she was finding it almost impossible to set up any kind of search for the TARDIS.

'I need it to find my ship now, in my timeline, but at the right point. If I find her years from now, she might be alright, but it'll be too late for Serene. Finding them from before the Master took them is no good either."

The algorithm was incredibly complex, but once the Doctor had perfected it, she set it running, using the tech the Ma'at followers used to pluck people like herself from the time stream for their trial.

At first, they were false findings. They let the Doctor take a portal control and chase after the Master, but he was never there, not even a trace of him, or Serene or the TARDIS. Maybe she was off in time, or maybe it was her own self she was following, crossing her own timeline and the TARDIS was trying to avoid her to prevent any disastrous consequences. It was incredibly frustrating.

/

* * *

The Master was enjoying himself immensely. This TARDIS, unlike his own, continuously took him to places other than where he'd set the controls for, but that didn't matter. Randomness was enough like chaos to suit him, and he made the most of everywhere they went.

He dragged Serene along with him, enjoying having someone to pay attention to him, listen when he spoke, though she could be incredibly tiresome. Mostly she was sullen and disapproving, sometimes sarcastic, which was a little more fun, bringing out a bit of banter. At least she'd quickly learned that disobeying brought pain, that he wouldn't hesitate to use the collar to control her, which meant he was less worried about her running off, or trying to attack him when he wasn't looking.

And he particularly enjoyed reminding her of a particular thing he'd seen in her trial - the thought that if she'd met him (or Missy) before she'd met the Doctor, that she might have been tempted into travelling with them.

"Might still do that," he said to her. They were standing in the open double doors of the TARDIS, watching a supernova.

"Go back to the Cerebral Order, find younger you and see if I can get you to run off with me. It'd mess up the timelines, but who cares about that?"

Serene stared at the exploding sun, trying to ignore the man at her side and make the best of things - if the Doctor had shown her this, her reaction would've been more positive, she knew that, so she tried to focus on the colours, the strange beauty.

"Oh, come on love, try a smile. Your face won't break. I brought you to a literal supernova. And I didn't even cause it! It went nova all by itself."

"Yes, it's lovely. Thank you."

Serene's tone was flat and empty, not even bothering with sarcasm, and the Master rolled his eyes.

"You're starting to bore me. Play along, or I might throw you into it, just to see how quickly you'd burn up."

She turned to face him, meeting his eyes, her expression as dull as her tone.

"What does the Master require this time?"

But the curtsey she dropped had an element of mockery to it, and he laughed.

"That's more like it."

He took hold of her round the waist, waltzing her around the console room. Serene didn't resist, trying not to think of the memory of herself and the Doctor dancing here, partnering each other equally.

"Neither of us are really dressed for this. Should have a top hat and tails really, or at least one of us should. Dunno if I've got the legs for some of the frocks in the wardrobe, this time around."

When Serene didn't reply, the Master waltzed them back to the open doors, spinning them around and releasing her from his hold. But instead of leaving her be, he grabbed the back of her jacket and shoved her through the doors, holding her suspended half in and half out.

Panic jolted through her - would the TARDIS let her fall? There was some kind of forcefield around them, keeping atmosphere in, but would that be enough? Her feet teetered on the edge, trying to inch back but he pushed forward, so she was caught leaning out, too far to reach the doors, not quite far enough to fall, as if she was hanging over the edge of a cliff.

"So the question is…" the Master was saying, as she scrabbled for purchase. "Have I gotten bored enough of you to kill you yet? I don't know why the Doctor bothers to keep someone around when you're all so tiresome. I thought having someone to listen to my monologues would be better than this, that you'd be impressed with how clever I am."

"That's really not the problem!" Serene called out, her fear evident in her voice, and that pleased him.

"I know. But you should be more grateful. I could've shoved you out so many times before now. And I haven't even set up any grand plans, let alone made you take part in them. You've gotten off unbelievably lightly, compared to what I've done to some of your predecessors. Haven't even made you kill anyone."

Serene couldn't think of anything to say. Was it her imagination, or was the heat from the sun starting to press through the shields? Her face felt warmer, and her whole body was screaming at her that she was about to fall.

Eventually, the Master pulled her back in, letting her drop to the floor in a heap. Serene stayed where she was, trying to get her panicked breathing under control, as he stood over her.

"Don't live up to your name, do you? So what d'you say we go back to your Order, see what I can find to keep my interest there? I'm sure there's plenty of trouble I can cause."

"No!" Serene couldn't keep her horrified cry inside. "You can't, they're-"

"I can do whatever I like," the Master snapped back, the rage burning again in his eyes, his voice, his whole demeanour. He leaned down and grabbed her, pulling her to her feet, holding her upright when her shaking legs wouldn't support her.

"Haven't you learned that yet, my little empress? There is nothing that you, or anyone else can do to stop me. The Doctor isn't coming to rescue you, so play nice, or you get shoved into a sun. Understand?"

Serene nodded, not looking at him.

"Yes. I'll do what you want. Just, please- don't attack the Order. Please!"

"Huh. Boring anyway. Even burning it wouldn't be all that much fun, and I don't want to have to put up with you crying all over the place."

The Master let her go and she slumped back against the wall.

"But while we're here…"

He grabbed her arm again, pulling the recall device off her wrist.

"This links you with her, doesn't it? I remember that, from the time we met in the Library."

And he threw the device out of the open doors, into the supernova.

"Be grateful I didn't take those memories out of your brain while we're at it."

Serene stayed where she was. While the wrist part was, technically, replaceable, she'd have to go back to the Order to get a new one. She tried not to show how upset she was at losing something she'd had for most of her life. True, when she'd been abducted by the Architects who wanted to use her to stage a coup on her home planet, they'd destroyed her original wrist device, but then she'd had the hope of the Doctor coming to save her, which was a lot less likely now. She forced herself to try and think of a way to rescue the Doctor by herself.

The Master went back to the console.

"So what do I want to do? Had enough of playing with others, no more Daleks or Cybermen or Kasaavin. And I'm not in the mood to go conquering, or setting myself up as a god. Let's go steal something!"

"Like what?" Serene asked, her voice still shaking as much as her legs.

"I dunno, anything. Something expensive, or dangerous. Or both. Let's see where the ship takes us."

He set the controls and threw the switch. Serene pushed the doors closed as they dematerialised, and a sudden thought struck her. There was a way off the TARDIS, to a degree. The - what had the Doctor called it? Emergency ejector programme. It was meant for safe evacuation, if there was a serious fault in the ship. Last time, it had sent her back to medieval Italy, the previous place they'd visited.

She had no idea how to make it work, but maybe, if the Master stopped watching her for long enough, she could access the TARDIS databanks, and figure out a way to get back to the Doctor. She still wore the teleport collar, and if she could get away from the Master fast enough that he couldn't override it, then maybe she could bring the Doctor back to the TARDIS too? Together, they would stand a chance. She didn't dare try running off any other way - without some sort of link to the TARDIS, they might never find it or the Master again, and she didn't know if the link between the ship and her recall implant would be enough, especially now she was without the secondary part.

Slowly, Serene approached the console, trying to remember where the Doctor had put the bracelets, once they'd come off. There was a storage compartment, somewhere; she'd been a bit distracted at the time to remember which one, and if she started rummaging now, the Master would notice immediately.

"So, what are you hoping to find?" she asked him. "A vault stuffed with gold and jewels?"

The Master looked up at her, mild suspicion on his face.

"Is that what you want?"

Serene shrugged.

"I'm not bothered about riches. I turned down an empire, remember?"

She fiddled with the star pendant she'd bought at the Millefiori Galleria what seemed like eons ago, hanging below the collar he'd put on her.

"But I do like pretty things."

"What, a supernova isn't enough for you?"

"Can't take that with you, can you? So what if we took from people who already have lots?"

"If you follow that with 'and give to the poor', you'll wish I had shoved you into a sun," he snapped, and for the first time, Serene smiled. Maybe it was because she had the tiniest beginnings of a plan, or maybe because he'd stopped threatening the Order, and would hopefully forget how much that had affected her.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't suggest such a thing to you. The Doctor wouldn't like the stealing part, and you wouldn't like the 'giving away what was stolen' part. Maybe I should go solo."

The Master smirked.

"A time-travelling Robin Hood? Nauseating."

"I've heard of that myth! I've been reading Earth legends, not just the Egyptian ones like the Ma'at cult. Unless Robin Hood's real? Maybe we could go and find out?"

"Oh, shut up."

The TARDIS landed, and he switched on the scanner to look outside, something the Doctor rarely did.

"Huh. Maybe the TARDIS was listening. Looks like we're on Earth. England, probably. Bit late for Robin Hood, mind. Maybe… early to mid 20th century?"

The picture cleared. A big house, in the countryside, grander than the one belonging to the commune, with a number of fancy-looking motor vehicles in front of it.

"Just in time for a party. That gives me an idea."

The butler opened the door at the sound of the knocker, and was rather surprised at the couple revealed behind it. The man looked South Asian, though his accent when he greeted him was British, and he wore at least some semblance of evening wear, but the girl… He'd travelled to a number of places in Asia, in service of his Lordship, but he'd never seen a skintone so golden, particularly not with eyes that vividly blue. And as for her clothing… Women in slacks was one thing, and sometimes it could be tolerated, particularly among the younger members of the aristocracy, though her outfit, peculiar blue neck decoration aside, made her look like a navvy, hardly suitable for a soiree of this type. But it depended on who she was, and whether refusing her entry would have any negative repercussions.

"Who may I announce you as?" he asked, trying to keep any judgement out of his voice.

"Good question." The man turned to the girl. "Don't think they'll recognise you as an empress here, love."

An empress? The butler looked the girl over again. Surely not. But perhaps she was royalty, in whichever country she came from. Best to practise deference, then.

"Call me The Master," the man continued. "Call her whatever you like, it doesn't matter."

"Oh! Very well then."

The butler ushered them inside, announcing to the reception room, which was filled with grand-looking people in expensive clothing.

"The Master, and his esteemed companion!"

Heads turned, mouths opening in surprise at the couple they saw walk in, arm in arm. They weren't the only people of colour in the room, Serene noticed, but they were in the minority.

_'And that's without them knowing we both come from different planets,'_ she thought.

The Master began to laugh immediately, pulling the gun from his pocket and shattering the punch bowl with a blast of energy. People screamed, and Serene tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight with his other hand.

"Everybody stand still! I'm going to send my companion-" he giggled at the word "-round to everyone in the room. She likes pretty things, so you're going to give her all your jewellery. "

Serene stared at him, outraged.

"I will not! I didn't mean-"

"Shut up, Empress, and do as you're told!" he barked. "Or else I start shooting people instead of the buffet."

He indicated the glass showered across the room, and its occupants, also soaked in sticky alcohol.

"Don't call me that!"

The Master shoved her away, taking out the sonic with his other hand and shocking her collar. Serene gasped, knees buckling at the pain.

"Quick as you like. Haven't got all day."

Shooting daggers at him, Serene got back up, taking a folded cloth from the sideboard and holding it out in front of her for the guests to start putting their jewels into. What could she do to stop him? Or maybe someone here would risk taking him on; if they could disarm him, then she'd only have to worry about him hurting her.

The Master moved back, gesturing with the gun for people to move into a line, pushing Serene forward to start robbing them.

"They all look pretty rich to me," he said to her. "I'm sure they can spare a few sparklers. You got a vault here, or a safe?" he asked the butler, who was standing to the side, watching in horror.

"I, no, we-"

"Don't lie to me!" The Master fired the gun again, up in the air and people shrieked, scattering as broken glass and crystal showered down from the chandelier.

"You lie to me, and people die. Now I'm not gonna ask again!"

The butler looked over at his employers, the Lord and Lady of the house. They nodded at him, the Lady removing her diamond earrings and handing them to Serene.

"Hurry up, Empress!"

Serene moved quicker, not looking at the people who handed her items, but also not checking to see whether they were handing over everything, or keeping valuables back. She had no idea who these people were, and whether or not she might feel justified in robbing them, or if they were in fact good people. Not that it was ever that simple, of course, and there was a larger problem facing her, namely making sure the Master didn't get trigger happy and kill anyone because he felt like it.

She took the spoils back to him, but the Master barely glanced at the pile of sparkling jewellery before he took her arm, pulling her along behind the butler as he led the way to the safe, past the kitchen to the pantry.

Serene glanced around, curious despite what she was being made a part of. Various servants were scurrying around, paying no attention to the two strangers with the butler, absorbed in their work and, it seemed, trained not to look up in general. She remembered with a pang the way some of the more self-important visiting academics had treated her at the Order, first as a child then as a lay sister. Most were polite enough, though some definitely were not, but they all made it clear that they thought themselves above her. Funny how she hadn't thought of that since leaving, not even when she was being forced into a position of importance, on discovery of her heritage.

The butler fumbled with keys, opening the enormous, heavy door to the safe. The Master peered inside, past the silverware, the piles of paper money, and assorted items he had no idea what they were - humans had some very strange ideas about what was valuable. He was only vaguely interested; this was more about testing Serene's obedience and having a little fun along the way, because what was the likelihood of finding something extraordinary in here? But, as he sorted through the contents of the safe, tossing aside whatever looked uninteresting, something gave off a little vibration, sensed inside his head.

"What… are you?"

He tracked it down to an unassuming wooden box, tucked away at the back. He tapped the box, holding it up to his ear to listen, then he laughed.

"Do you even know what you've got here?"

The butler looked puzzled.

"I believe it's one of the items his Lordship brought back from the East. I'm afraid I don't know exactly-"

"Oh, this comes from much further away than just 'East', my friend," the Master interrupted. "Haven't seen one of these in a very long time."

"What is it?" Serene asked, her curiosity increasing.

"The most exciting thing we're gonna find here. Must be why the TARDIS brought us here, though it probably has a different idea of what to do with it."

He tucked the box into the breast pocket of his coat, then grabbed Serene's arm.

"Come on. Time to be off."

The two aliens ran back through the corridors, straight into the Lord and Lady of the house, who had been using the time the Master was away very efficiently, arming themselves and their guests with hunting rifles from their cabinet, all of which were now aimed at the intruders.

Serene, thinking fast, threw the jewellery she was carrying at them, hoping to distract them long enough that no-one would get shot, and she and the Master ran out the front doors.

They made it to the TARDIS before anyone caught up, and the Master wasted no time in taking off.

"Thought you liked pretty things?" he asked Serene. "Yet I give you a handful of them, and you throw them away."

"I like not getting shot even more," she retorted. "Besides, it's not like you really wanted any of the things you made me take."

"True," he replied, his mood seeming genuinely good.

Once they were in flight, he took the box out of his pocket and began scanning it with the sonic.

"What is it?" Serene asked again. "Is it alien?"

"Oh yes. Thought they were extinct."

He popped open the lid a little to peek inside.

"Barely even dormant any more. It'll hatch soon, unless…"

The Master pressed a few buttons on the console, creating a kind of suspension field, and he shook the contents of the box out into it. It sparkled like a gemstone, but as it rotated gently in the beam of energy holding it, Serene could see that it was a kind of egg.

"There. That'll hold it until I find a use for it."

He looked over at Serene, who was staring at it in fascination.

"Bet you've never seen one of these before."

"No. What's going to come out of that, when it hatches?"

"None of your business. Now keep quiet."

He started searching through the TARDIS database, and Serene took the opportunity to surreptitiously open a few compartments on her side of the console. By the third one, she found what she was looking for; two slim silver bracelets. She slid them into the back pocket of her jeans, as quietly as she could. The rest she'd have to do later.

"Right! Let's try that again."

"Try what again?" Serene asked. She knew he wasn't going to tell her anything important, but decided to keep asking anyway, even if he continued to hurt her for doing so.

"Stealing. Come on, accomplice."


	8. Chapter 8

The TARDIS materialised, and despite her very real fear of what the Master might do at anytime, Serene felt the familiar little flutter of excitement at landing somewhere new. Maybe it would be somewhere interesting, or somewhere she could get help?

She followed him out, surprised to find them inside some kind of bank vault. It wasn't piled high with valuables, like a dragon's hoard - Earth had some wonderful mythical creatures, she could've spent years just studying them - but small boxes lined the walls, all individually locked. There wasn't much space inside the vault, so she stood still while the Master scanned the room.

"Huh. Not getting a signal. That's annoying."

He made an adjustment to the sonic, and suddenly every door in the room blew open, as if exploded from the inside. Serene ducked, shielding her face with her arms until the contents of the room settled. The Master was already rooting through piles of items on the floor.

"I didn't bring you along for decoration," he grunted at Serene. "Get digging."

"What am I looking for?" she asked, doing as he said. "Are you hoping to find another egg?"

"You'll know when you find it," he replied, terse.

They searched for some time, but Serene found nothing unusual. Money, both paper and metal, jewels and precious metals, official-looking documents, keepsakes, all the sorts of things you might expect in a room like this (wherever it was that they were). The Master, however, stood abruptly, pocketing whatever it was he'd found.

"Time to move on."

He went back into the TARDIS, leaving the blizzard of contents strewn across the floor without a backward glance. Serene sighed, got up, and followed.

They repeated the procedure at another vault, where the Master collected an old-fashioned metal key, then they went to another where he found nothing. Annoyed, he moved them on to what reminded Serene of the science labs at the Order. A university, possibly, judging by the layout of the room, and an alien one too, because the people - if you could use that word - didn't appear humanoid this time. Multi-limbed with white shell-like material in place of skin and unblinking black eyes, they looked like nothing Serene had ever seen, but before she could ask any questions, the Master began barking out demands. Someone in authority appeared, and they began to converse in a strange clicking language that Serene couldn't understand and the TARDIS didn't translate. Then the two of them headed out of the room.

"Stay here, and don't move, or I'll let them eat you," the Master threw over his shoulder at her, apparently only just remembering she was there.

"Eat me?"

Serene looked over at the students, who all left their experiments and came to study her. instead She remained still, trying to read their intent as they gathered around her. They poked at her skin and seemed fascinated by her hair, lifting strands of it and running it through their clawed hands. They took out little pieces of equipment and took readings from her, but Serene didn't feel threatened. She'd been imprisoned and experimented on, questioned and accused of witchcraft and this didn't feel like any one of those things. They were curious, and by the looks of things, they were scientists. So long as they didn't want to start cutting her open or anything, she was happy to let them work.

"My name is Serene," she said, wondering if they had translators, while the TARDIS wasn't helping. "I'm a Zinariyan, from the planet Taer Prime."

It still felt strange to say that, but it was oddly comforting to be able to do so, to know where she came from, who her people were. The alien students spoke among themselves in the clicky language, and Serene wished she still had her recall device. She'd had it so long, she didn't know what else to try.

"Do you know the Cerebral Order?" she asked, and there was a little flurry of clicks in reply. One of them picked up what appeared to be their version of a handheld computer, and brought up an image.

Serene felt a wave of nostalgia go through her at the sight of the reception of the Order. She'd spent nearly all her life there, brought to that very building as a baby, rescued from the uprising that had killed all her family, until the Doctor had taken her away to explore the universe.

"Yes," she said. "That's right. I lived there. Have any of you been?"

They were beginning to understand her, somehow. The one with the computer brought up more images, labs within the Order. So they - whoever they were - had sent representatives to the Order at some point, maybe worked on collaborative projects. One of them was scanning the implant in her neck, and again Serene thought how much easier this would be if the Master hadn't destroyed her wrist device. But then again, he could've thrown her out of the TARDIS after it, so best to try and focus on the positive. Whatever he was planning, it was unlikely to be anything nice, so she should work on sabotaging it too, if she could.

She pointed at the door he'd gone through.

"What does he want from you?" she asked. "He won't tell me. He's dangerous, you should be careful of him."

The aliens exchanged looks, clicking to each other. The one with the little computer showed her an image of a piece of equipment, but Serene had no idea what it was.

"This is what he asked for?"

But there was no time to get any further answers, as the Master came back in, carrying a silver case.

"Still alive?" he asked, sounding almost disappointed. "Come on, then."

He went back into the TARDIS, and Serene followed, regretfully leaving what could have been new friends - and would have been, had she come here with the Doctor - behind.

The Master plugged the case into the console, not opening it, and the ship took off again.

"Can I go to bed?" Serene asked. "I'm exhausted. We've been running around for hours."

"Ugh, you humans are so inefficient."

"I'm not human," Serene reminded him.

"Same difference. Ask me nicely."

Trying not to roll her eyes, Serene curtseyed again.

"Please, Master? May I rest?"

"If you must."

He took her to her room, locking her in once he'd swept over the room with the sonic, checking she hadn't secreted away any technology she might use against him. Fortunately, it didn't detect the bracelets for the emergency ejector she had in her pocket, maybe because they were currently inactive.

Once Serene was sure he'd gone - to do what, she had no idea, hoped it wasn't anything too catastrophic - she settled herself into a seated position, as if she was meditating, the bracelets in her hand.

_'The Doctor said I was linked with the ship,'_ she thought. _'Not just the recall device, the implant but telepathically. So I just have to hope she can hear me…'_

She remembered when the Doctor had linked them all, bringing the TARDIS into the trap on Rhyolae to rescue them, and to project a hologram of the Scyava as a distraction to get back into the ship, on Taer Prime.

_'Use that memory, and reach out,'_ Serene told herself. _'Find an interface, and ask for help.'_

It was the strangest of feelings. The memory of trying to get out of the trap involved remembering being in the TARDIS, which she already was, so she tried to pull her thoughts together. The bracelets had appeared on her seemingly spontaneously, the first time, and she'd only been recalled by the Doctor, but Serene remembered how she'd been teleported back onto the ship in the nick of time, rescued from a terrible death. The memory of that fear, followed by overwhelming relief, was incredibly strong, and she focused on it, reaching out for any awareness within the ship. It was hard going, but she continued to push, trying to find a way to reach the consciousness of the TARDIS.

"Hello."

A voice from nowhere jolted Serene from her meditative trance, and she was no less surprised when a hologram appeared before her; a dark haired, pale skinned white woman in a strange dress.

"What-?"

"I am a vocal interface of the ship," the woman said, and, with some relief, Serene recognised her. Idris, the woman who had once held the essence of the TARDIS, and whose appearance the TARDIS had used to interact with the Doctor when she was repairing a schism within the ship. Her picture was in the gallery of the Doctor's memories, alongside her friends, family.

"You can help me? How?"

The-TARDIS-as-Idris appeared very human, her face expressive.

"I am programmed to obey the Master, to let him pilot me. But he has violated me before, made me a paradox machine, forced me to do harm. I won't let him use me again, if I can prevent it. Those devices…" she indicated the collar around Serene's neck, the bracelets she held. "If there is power, I can link them, send you where you need to go. Find my thief."

Serene, somewhat overwhelmed by this chain of events, didn't question the TARDIS' strange words, nor ask for further explanation.

"What do I need to do?"

"When you're back at the console, I'll show you. Everything else will be prepared by then."

The interface vanished, leaving Serene to wonder if she'd hallucinated this chance of rescue. And it was then she realised that she actually was worn out, after the rollercoaster of emotions the Master had provoked within her that day. So, with nothing else she could do right then, she slept.

A few hours later, the Master woke Serene, banging open the door to her room, and pulling her up from the bed.

"It's no good. I'm bored. The TARDIS is being weird and stubborn, and I need a canary to make sure it isn't planning on tripping any nasty little surprises the Doctor might have left for anyone piloting that isn't her."

"You're only just thinking that now?" Serene asked, as he hurried her out of the room.

"It wasn't misbehaving before. Now I think it's up to something."

Serene thought fast. She didn't know exactly what the TARDIS was planning, so maybe she could use the bracelets to kick the Master out instead? But no, even with help from the interface, it was unlikely she'd be able to fly the TARDIS herself, especially not to somewhere it hadn't been before, in a time period Serene herself didn't recognise. But if she could get to the Doctor, then her friend stood a better chance of getting the ship back from him.

They reached the console room, and the Master pushed her in ahead of him. He was right, the TARDIS was behaving strangely, flashing lights and making weird noises she'd never heard before.

The gem-egg still hung above the console, suspended in a miniature forcefield.

"Maybe it's your egg that's upsetting her."

"Probably. Can't be too careful though. Stand there, and don't touch anything."

Serene obeyed, until he was distracted enough by what he was doing that she could slip on the bracelets unnoticed. She scanned the console, and saw a button light up. It was, however, all hinging on the collar powering up as the bracelets did, in order to link them together, and provide the space/time co-ordinates. And she could only think of one way to do that.

She darted forward, her finger over the button as she pretended to grab at the egg-gem with her other hand at the same time.

"I told you to stand still!" the Master yelled, and as he raised the sonic, Serene pressed the button. The bracelets powered up as the collar shocked her, two energies surrounding her at once, and with a flash of light, Serene vanished.

* * *

The Doctor had been working on tweaking the algorithm again for some hours. She had to make sure she found Serene at the exact point in time; didn't want to overshoot and catch up with her years down the line, because that wasn't an easy fix. She'd made that mistake before, too many times, and that was with the TARDIS. The Doctor didn't want to risk creating a fixed point where Serene had been gone for a lifetime, and she couldn't get her back from that.

Taking a break to rest her eyes, the Doctor wandered back down to the Hall of the Two Truths, where acolytes of Ma'at were still going over details from her trial. Probably they were never going to stop doing that. Once she'd rescued Serene, she'd have to see about erasing all those details from her life from whatever sort of database they'd built. She didn't like anyone having that sort of information, especially not a weird cult obsessed with maintaining some mythical balance in the universe.

_'There must be something I'm missing,'_ she thought. _'I can't leave her out there, not with him. And I need my TARDIS back or I'm stuck, even with portal tech.'_

The Hall was built to impress, and its acoustics were such that when the Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by a flash of light, and a scream, the sound rang all around the room, amplified.

The Doctor turned to see the source of the noise, and saw her best friend appear out of nowhere, bathed in eerie blue light, and then collapse to the floor.

"Serene!"

The Doctor ran to her side, grabbing her hand.

"What- how? Are you okay?"

Serene was gasping for breath, shuddering all over.

"That _hurt._ "

"What did? How have you-?"

The Doctor noticed the flashing lights on her friend's wrists, the collar around her neck, and quickly put two and two together. She called over the Horus guards, hovering close by.

"Help me get this off her."

The Doctor knew she was being melodramatic, but she missed having the sonic so much it felt like losing a limb. Once the fizzing collar was removed, Serene calmed immediately.

"I _really_ don't want to do that again."

"Seeing as how I don't know how you did it the first time, I doubt you'll have to," the Doctor replied, helping her to sit up.

"I-" Serene stopped, unsure how to explain.

"Take your time. I'm so glad to see you!"

They hugged, and Serene filled her in on what had happened since the Master had taken her away. The Doctor held in all her anger, her fear over what her enemy might have done to her friend. She knew Serene was brave and resourceful, but so were many people who'd gone up against him and come off worse.

"He was going to kill you. I believed him, he really wanted to."

Serene reached toward the bruise on the Doctor's forehead, not quite touching.

"I couldn't stop him hurting you. I'm sorry."

The Doctor took hold of her hand and squeezed it.

"I'm fine. Really. What about you? What did he do?"

Serene shook her head.

"Nothing. He liked to threaten a lot, but he didn't do anything, not really. And I think we can get back to the TARDIS with these."

She held out the bracelets on her wrists.

"And the collar should help us find him, too? Some sort of return journey, maybe?"

"Bit more tricky without the sonic, but yeah, should be possible. The next question is, what do we do when we get there? What was he planning?"

"He robbed a number of banks, security deposit places, I don't know what he was looking for. And he found some sort of alien egg that looked like a gemstone in a house on Earth. Said it was about to hatch?"

"Huh. Could be a number of things."

"There was some equipment too, from a species I've never seen before. I didn't get the chance to find out what it was."

Serene rubbed her emptier-than-usual left wrist, and the Doctor noticed her device was gone.

"What happened to-?"

"He threw it into a supernova. Which made it a little harder to get back here."

The Doctor bit down on her anger again. The Master had stolen everything from her, to hurt her, but Serene was back with her now, and she was determined to recover the TARDIS too.

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop him. He-"

"It's all right," Serene interrupted. "I know what he is, what he's like. It could've been a lot worse."

The Doctor squeezed her hand again, helping Serene to her feet

"Okay. Help me out, and we'll do what we can to find him."

While the Doctor worked on adjusting her algorithm for the Master, rather than Serene, her friend used the Ma'at cult database to search for the aliens the Master had taken her too, and any clues about the egg-jewel. There was nothing that specifically matched the description, but there were myths and stories about similar things, and none were particularly reassuring. But for it to have ended up on 20th century Earth, that narrowed it down a bit.

Eventually, she took her findings to the Doctor.

"Have you ever heard of a Metamorph Burrower?"

"Can't say I have. What does it say about it?"

"They're exceptionally rare, but apparently once they hatch, they grow really fast, and they burrow down through the surface of a planet and change it."

"Change it?" The Doctor scrunched up her face. "That doesn't sound good. How bad are we talking?"

"Uh, catastrophic, if they grow to full size. If the planet is occupied, they tend to make it uninhabitable, sometimes permanently."

"And you think that's what he found?"

Serene shrugged, her expression serious.

"Maybe. There isn't a lot recorded about them, but they start small and one account says the eggs can look gem-like. There's a story about one a few galaxies away from Earth, and it could have seeded in the right direction for it to end up there."

"If the TARDIS sensed it was there, maybe she was hoping we could get it away before there was any trouble, but who knows what he'll do with it?"

"How about you? Any luck?"

The Doctor picked up the collar.

"Sort of. This was already on 'return journey' to bring you back here, so it's tricky to get it to take us back to the TARDIS, but I think I've jigged it to use those-" she indicated the bracelets still locked around Serene's wrists "- to find when she is, and to take us both back. Question is, if we succeed, what then?"

"Well…" Serene was thoughtful. "I have an idea, though I don't know how we'll pull it off."

The Doctor and Serene put their heads together, and gathered as much equipment as they could from the Ma'at cult, who were being surprisingly helpful.

Some of them clearly didn't want to let the Doctor go, arguing about the lack of agreement over the balance in her life, but Ma'at herself seemed to have accepted that there would never be consensus on this. If the Doctor herself truly believed that she had more good to do in her life, and that the good would always outweigh the bad, that was enough for their standards.

Eventually, with Serene carrying the portal tech as a backup in case the Doctor's work wasn't entirely accurate, the Doctor activated the collar and bracelets together, and, holding onto each other, the two women vanished.


	9. Chapter 9

The teleportation was less traumatic than Serene's last journey, but it was still unpleasant, uncomfortable and extremely disorientating. However, they did land inside the TARDIS console room, slamming into the floor on arrival.

"Whoo. Not a nice way to travel," the Doctor said. "Even a vortex manipulator is better than that."

She got up.

"You okay?"

Serene was still sitting with her eyes closed, trying to steady her breathing.

"I will be. Is he here?"

"Not right now."

The Doctor turned on the scanner.

"But he's close. I can tell, but I don't want to tip him off that we're here."

She examined the console, trying to determine where the TARDIS had landed.

"Don't know this planet, but it's inhabited. If the egg is that of a Metamorph burrower, then we definitely need to stop it hatching here."

There was a clang as the bracelets dropped off Serene's wrists once more, and the Doctor put them away, helping her friend to her feet. She spied her coat and boots, tucked away to the side of the room and gratefully put them back on, feeling more like herself. Barefoot was fine when fencing on a lawn during an English summer; running around the universe and going up against the Master, not so much.

"You ready to do your thing?"

"I'll try. Not so easy without…" Serene tapped her empty wrist. "But hopefully I can find it again. How about you?"

"Oh, I've been ready for this for a while. Most of the times I meet the Master, they're one step ahead, always planning something, some scheme or other going. That time in the Library was an anomaly. This time, I'm coming for him, and he doesn't know it."

Her face was utterly determined, and Serene felt a flash of concern, but there were other things to worry about right then than the Doctor going a little darker.

"Okay. I'll do what I can. What's that phrase they have on Earth? See you on the other side."

"Alright. Good luck."

They hugged briefly, then Serene went further into the TARDIS, as the Doctor headed outside.

The Master wasn't far away. The landscape was barren, rocky and dry, and the air felt oppressive, like a storm was coming. In a large clearing, flat and dusty, under a darkening sky, he was working busily on something, a large piece of equipment already mostly constructed, and the Doctor couldn't quite tell what it was. He'd flung off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and she was a little surprised he didn't have a team of flunkeys (or worse, slaves) doing the work for him. Maybe he had known she was coming, after all, no time to assemble a workforce.

He was using her sonic, and that was especially annoying. Tempted though she was to run and catch him by surprise, the Doctor held herself back. She stopped about ten feet behind him, waiting, hands in her pockets.

Eventually, the Master stilled.

"What kept you?"

"Well, it's not like you made it easy for me. Stole my ship, my sonic, my best friend."

The Master still didn't turn around.

"You got one of those back already, I assume. Unless the collar burned her up on the return journey."

The Doctor ignored that last part.

"Now I've come to get the other two." Her tone sharpened. "And stop whatever this nasty little plan is."

"You haven't figured it out?"

"I'm not all that interested."

He finally turned to face her, and she saw the gem-egg, suspended in an energy field in the middle of what he was building.

"If I'm honest, I'm bored of this," the Doctor continued. "Me chasing you round the universe, stopping everything you try. And I do succeed, have you not noticed that?"

The Master grinned.

"But at what cost? Maybe that was the point all along."

"I really don't care."

She moved closer, until they were face to face, and she didn't try and hide her anger.

"Everything you've done. All the death, the destruction. It still isn't enough?"

"What could ever be enough?" His eyes bored into hers, his expression burning with intensity. "I could wipe out the universe, all of reality, and it _still_ wouldn't be enough."

She held his gaze.

"And without me to stop you, that's what you'd do?" she asked.

He shrugged, the intensity vanishing, his mood shifting like a switch had been flipped.

"I've thought about it. Sometimes I wonder what'd take its place, if I did."

"What'd take the place of the universe?"

That did throw the Doctor a bit. Davros had tried to do something similar, once. It hadn't really occurred to her to think what would've come after, if he'd succeeded.

"Yeah. Would it be better, or worse?"

The Doctor sighed, anger ebbing as exhaustion set in.

"Why can't you just get a hobby? Watercolours, or something. You could take up cross-stitch, or frog breeding-"

"This is my hobby," the Master replied, gesturing around. "I make plans, and I carry them out. Annoying you is a bonus."

"And what if I just chose to ignore you? To stop caring what you do?"

"Then people'd die."

His words were deceptively calm.

"I could take this-" he indicated the Burrower egg "-back to Earth easily enough, or the Order you found your little friend in. Once it's full-sized, it can destroy a planet. It could split that moon in two before it was half-grown."

"And what'd that achieve?"

He shrugged again.

"Chaos. Death, destruction. All my favourite things."

The Doctor's face showed her disgust.

"Yeah. They really had your number back in the Ma'at Hall, calling you Set. God of storms, disorder and violence."

The Master ignored her.

"And maybe you'd get that look on your face, like you can't believe I really did it, I went that far and I did it."

The Doctor's expression shuttered but the Master didn't stop, leaning in closer, enjoying himself now.

"I've seen it so many times, and it is just the _best_. Last time I saw it was on Gallifrey. What'd it take to see it here?"

His eyes flicked over her shoulder, looking to see if Serene was also present.

"Did you lose her already, or are you keeping her away from me? Your little empress."

"Empress?"

"Oh, I know all about what she could've been. She thinks she's so strong 'cos she turned down temptation, but I didn't get the chance to test her, to really push her."

"No, and you won't either," the Doctor snapped. "She outsmarted you and she got away, and found me again."

"Should've shoved her into a sun when I had the chance," he snarled, chaos looming in him once more. "Should've done that to all your little friends. Maybe that can be my new pastime, when I'm done here. Tracking down everyone you ever travelled with and killing them. Those you didn't already get killed, anyway."

The Doctor's hands curled into fists involuntarily. He could provoke her so easily, knew how to hurt her.

"You've done enough of that already. Don't think I've forgotten or forgiven how you spent an entire year torturing Martha's family, and killing Jack over and over."

The Master smirked.

"You mean that year I kept you as my pet? Good times, even if your meddling got everything reversed."

"Or if we go a bit further back, how you murdered Tegan's aunt. And Nyssa's father, then stole his face and caused her entire planet to be destroyed. Surprised she never came after you for that. You probably murdered Danny, Clara's boyfriend too. At least one of the Osgoods. And then there's Bill."

The Master laughed out loud, raucous.

"Bill! Oh, that was a _good_ one. I really committed to character there. Spent _years_ earning her trust so I could get her Cyber-converted. You had that look on your face then, too, when you first saw her like that. I love seeing how it looks on your different faces."

The Doctor made a Herculean effort to restrain herself.

"You changed though, after that. When you were Missy."

"I was lying."

"No. I watched over you in that vault, for years. You're a good liar, but even you aren't that good. You couldn't commit that long, pass up all those chances to run off, to go back to your old ways, unless you meant it, even a little. And didn't you end up killing each other, when there were two of you in the same place?"

The Master's expression boiled over with rage, but he kept it from spilling into action.

"Why d'you think I'm like this now?"

This time it was the Doctor who smiled, though it hurt to think of those things, those times, when she and the Master had been different people. It was a far cry from her usual joyful expression, closer to the satisfied smirk that suited the Master.

"Because you never could stand yourself. You think it's me you hate?"

They stared each other down.

"We're probably the last two Gallifreyans left alive, the only Time Lords in the Universe," the Doctor said. "What's the point of all this?"

"It only stops when one of us is dead," was the bitter reply. "You know that."

"Maybe you're right."

"But could you do it, Doctor? Could you kill me?"

He leaned in, forehead pressing against hers. She didn't pull away.

"I don't know. You deserve it. Push me far enough, and we'll find out."

They were interrupted by the arrival of Serene, who approached slowly.

She didn't want to get in the way, but she was concerned about what would happen. The thought of killing the Master herself had crossed her mind, but she knew the Doctor would never forgive her for that, so it had to be ended another way.

"Did you find it?" The Doctor asked her, stepping back from the Master, but not looking away from him.

"Yes. It's not being very cooperative, though."

"Doesn't matter."

The Master broke eye contact, looking over at Serene.

"Getting a taste of your own medicine, are you, Empress?"

"I did everything you said," she snapped back. "Your obedient little pet."

"And it was as dull having you trail after me as I thought it would be."

He glanced back over at the Doctor, who hadn't moved.

"I don't know how you stand it. They're so _tiny_."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," she replied.

"And they break so easily."

He pointed the sonic toward Serene. The Doctor made a grab for it, but he sidestepped quickly. There was a whirring sound, and then a sudden searing pain in Serene's head, shooting out and up from the implant in her neck, made her gasp and drop to her knees.

"Useful little thing, that," the Master commented, casually, as the Doctor ran to her friend's side, supporting her.

"And you connected to it so many times with this." He waved the sonic. "Easy enough to find what you did, and to use that to hurt her. And I will hurt her, Doctor. Might even kill her, if I want to see that look on your face again."

But the Doctor's expression just then was pure hatred.

"Enough. Stop it."

"Make me."

Without giving herself time to think, to talk herself out of it, the Doctor threw herself at him. Her current body was slighter, smaller than her previous incarnations, but she was far from weak and helpless, especially when her friend was being threatened. Hitting his chest with her shoulder, she knocked the Master over, the sonic flying from his hand and releasing Serene from the pain he was inflicting.

The Doctor pinned him to the ground, one knee on his chest, her hands around the base of his throat.

_'I could,'_ she thought. _'I could do it. Wouldn't kill him, not properly, but it'd stop him. Maybe regeneration would change him, he'd go back to being like Missy was, at the end.'_

But the Master was laughing.

"Oh, we don't do this enough."

"Serene, pick up the sonic," the Doctor called out. "We need to find out how close that thing is to hatching."

Groggily, her friend got up, doing as she was asked. The Doctor told her what settings to use, and she scanned the near-completed machinery.

"I think it is a Metamorph burrower," Serene told her. "The field's holding it in stasis, for now."

"So what's your plan?" the Doctor demanded, to the Master. "To let it hatch, and change this planet? Why here?"

He stared up at her, lying still but appearing amused.

"It's the largest in this solar system. Once it's done with this planet, it'll seed the rest, and then they'll spread out, until the whole galaxy is infested. And then they'll keep going."

She stared back, uncomprehending.

"Why?"

"You know why. This is what I do. Chaos, destruction, and death."

"And I stop you. That's what I do."

"As I said, Doctor. At. What. Cost?"

Moving incredibly fast, he pulled out a gun she didn't even know he had, pressing the barrel to her forehead.

"Doctor!"

Serene took a step toward them but the Master held up his other hand.

"Don't you move! One more step and I shoot her in the head. Remember what I said, last time we did this? I keep shooting, and she doesn't come back. You don't just lose her as she is now, but the Doctor dies forever, no more regenerations."

Serene stopped still, hands held out in front of her. He was staring at the Doctor, but she knew he'd be able to tell if she moved.

"Which one of you would hurt more, if I killed the other?" he wondered aloud. The Doctor took her hands away from him, leaning back as he sat up, the gun still held to her head.

"I mean, you've had a lot more practise, Doctor. I'm sure you could shake off losing one more pet."

"Don't act like you understand what you're saying," she replied. Her voice was quieter but her anger still simmered through her. "You've never cared about anyone."

He ignored her.

"But you, little Empress. Could you go back to being nobody, stuck in one place and time?"

Serene didn't answer.

"And you've never lost anyone you loved before, have you?"

"My whole family's dead," she threw back.

"But you don't even remember them. It's not like this, not up close watching them die."

"Let her go," the Doctor demanded. "This is between you and me. Always has been."

"Oh, but this is a lot more fun."

The Master was grinning now, enjoying himself. He gestured for her to get up, and both Time Lords got to their feet.

"What could I make her do, to save you? How far could I push her?"

He left the Doctor standing in the open, holding the gun steadily on her as he backed toward Serene.

"Let's start with taking down the containment field around the burrower, shall we?"

He stood at Serene's side, taking hold of her shoulder, bunching the material of her jacket in one hand.

"The command's already programmed into the sonic. Do it."

Serene looked at the Doctor, fear for her friend racing through her. She believed him, the same as when they'd stood in the Hall of the Ma'at cult.

"I said do it!" he yelled, shaking her and she did as he said.

The field shut down, and immediately, the egg began to vibrate, close to hatching.

He gave her more instructions, finishing what he'd been building and starting the activation process, then took the sonic back from her, pocketing it.

"What does it do, this machine?" Serene asked.

"Gets the burrower further in faster, like a drill making a mineshaft. Speeds everything up. We're on a faultline here, and it can direct the burrower to the point where it'll do the most damage."

"And all the people living on this planet?"

"They'll die."

The Master looked over at her, keeping the gun trained on the Doctor, who was waiting, tense, for any chance to intervene.

"So… will you try and stop the burrower, knowing it means letting the Doctor die, or will you do what I tell you? Save her, and kill a planet?"

"How do I know you won't kill her anyway, if I do it?" Serene asked. "Kill us both when you're done."

He smirked.

"You don't. But this is your one chance to try and save her."

Serene stared at him, mind whirring.

"I mean, I already know you'll choose her, over a bunch of strangers," the Master continued. "It's not about the choice, not really. It's about how you live with what you've done."

He watched panic spread across Serene's face as she realised he'd called it right. She couldn't let the Doctor die, there was no way she'd let that happen. The Doctor was the only person in the universe that she loved. Not romantically, a best friend rather than a partner, but the thought of being without her was unbearable.

"You're a real bastard, aren't you?"

"Like you didn't know that already."

Agonised, Serene looked between the Master and the Doctor, searching for another way out. But there was nothing. Her body sagged, giving up and giving in.

"All right. Tell me what to do."

He pointed to the controls, the part that she recognised had come from the alien lab, giving her instructions. But as soon as she began, and his attention went back to the Doctor, she threw herself at his gun arm, catching him by surprise and they wrestled for control of it.

The Doctor was too far away to intervene in time, and though Serene made him drop the gun, he grabbed hold of her and shoved her, hard, right into the machinery he'd built.

The containment field sprang up again, but this time it surrounded the whole machine, trapping Serene inside. The Master pulled out the Doctor's sonic, activating whatever he'd done before to her recall implant. Pain shot through her, the field preventing her from escaping, and she could see sparks all around as parts of the machinery blew.

The Doctor barrelled into the Master, knocking him down again and grabbing the sonic, but instead of releasing Serene, there was another explosion, and everything went black.

The Doctor leapt to her feet, ignoring the Master as she pulled her friend's body from the still sparking machine, the containment field collapsing. Serene wasn't moving, unconscious and barely breathing, angry red burns spread across her neck, radiating out from the implant, which looked fused.

The Master was laughing.

"And now you have to choose," he said. "Stay here and try and save your friend, or leave her here while you try and stop me taking your ship again."

He backed away, heading toward the TARDIS, but the Doctor didn't even look up. Putting two fingers in her mouth, she gave a piercing whistle, then turned her attention back to Serene, trying to find out what damage had been done.

"What was that in aid of?" the Master asked, annoyed by the lack of response from the Doctor.

Turning around, he could see the ship, a little way off, the doors wide open. And heading toward him, incredibly fast, was a huge dog, a glowing blue collar around its neck.

"What? How did you-?"

He didn't get to finish his question. The bloodhound from the Ma'at cult, released from the infinite trap inside the TARDIS, leapt at him and they both vanished in a flash of light.

"That ought to keep you busy for a while," the Doctor muttered, with some satisfaction. "They won't fall for your tricks twice, so good luck getting away from them this time."

The sonic wasn't getting detailed enough results, and the ones that did come up were very worrying. Serene wasn't waking up, so once she'd made sure the Metamorph burrower was once more suspended in the containment field, albeit a rather wonky one, the Doctor did her best to half-carry, half-drag her friend back to the TARDIS.

The ship lit up as it recognised her, pleased to have lost her unwelcome pilot and have her thief back.

"Hello, lovely," the Doctor said to the TARDIS, setting Serene down. "I'm very, very glad to be home. But there's no time for that. We need a hospital. Quick as you like."

The doors swung shut, and the Doctor hurriedly took off.

There were many places she could've taken Serene, lots of reliable hospitals and medics. But she was so worried about her friend, she couldn't think straight, trusting the TARDIS to find the best place.

_'I really miss having a Team in the TARDIS. Someone else to help out. Definitely miss having a medic on board. Martha, or Rory. Even Strax.'_

Opening the doors, she found they were on the Exigency Space Station, right in the reception area.

"I need help!" she yelled, going back to Serene and trying to lift her. A trauma team rapidly arrived, somewhat confused by the ship but not really having time to process the transcendental dimensions. They moved Serene onto a anti-grav stretcher and pushed it out of the TARDIS. One tried to prevent the Doctor from following, but she was determined to stay at her friend's side.

"You need me to tell you what happened."

"All right, for now you can stay. What's her species?"

"She's Zinariyan. No existing health problems that I know of. There was an accident, an explosion. She was so close, right inside it. But it's not that I'm worried about. Her implant-" The Doctor gestured to her own neck. "It's part of a memory recall device. The secondary part's already gone, but the way it's fused… there could be brain damage."

"Okay, we'll get the specialists in to look at her. Are you two married?"

"What? Oh. No. We're just… friends."

"But you're close," the medic finished, clearly experienced in dealing with relatives and loved ones. "The best thing you can do now is leave her with us, honestly. Fill out as much detail as you can with Reception, and trust us to help her."

They reached the trauma unit and rushed Serene straight in, leaving the Doctor behind. For a moment, she stared at the doors, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly. She hated this, all of this. Her friend suffering, not being able to do anything…

At least the Master was safely away from Serene, hopefully imprisoned by the cult of Ma'at for a very long time. When all this was sorted, she'd look into finding his TARDIS, putting it somewhere safe. Stranding him wouldn't be permanent, not with his resourcefulness, but it would slow him down. Assuming the Doctor didn't end up inflicting a worse punishment on him, depending on how bad Serene's injuries were.

_'Come on, Doctor. Pull yourself together. You've been here before, and this doesn't mean you'll lose her. Don't give up.'_

Something the medic said sank in. Specialists… This was one of the top trauma hospitals in the universe, but what about aftercare? The recall device could've done more damage than the explosion itself, and the Doctor knew just where to find a specialist for that.

The Doctor could have materialised the TARDIS directly into the lab, but she decided it would be better to take her time, and instead landed in the Serenity Garden, the place where she and Serene had first met.

_'If she hadn't been here at the exact time I landed, would we even have met? Would she have stayed here her whole life, bored but safe?'_ The Doctor thought, passing slowly through the rose-covered walkway. All the thoughts and worries that had surfaced during her Ma'at 'trial' came back; whether people she met and travelled with were better or worse off for having done so. Those who had died, or been changed… and if she couldn't help Serene now, then what?

The Doctor headed out of the garden, toward the cluster of enormous sand-coloured buildings, laid out around an open cloister, like an ancient Earth university, all soaring spires and stained glass, a cathedral to learning and knowledge. She checked in at Reception, wanting to do things properly for once, though she wasn't entirely sure of her motivations.

Once members of the Cerebral Order realised who the Doctor was, she received a lot of fascinated stares. Some remembered how she had seen off a troop of attacking Nevedi forces, others that she had come to them for help when she'd lost control of her memories, and how they'd been prevented from studying her as they wanted to. Some were just curious, as the Order encouraged them to be.

The Doctor had forgotten how quiet the buildings here were. Busy, but everyone going about their business calmly and with the serenity the Order had hoped to imbue in her friend with the choice of name they'd given her. But she did remember running full tilt down these corridors with Serene, laughing.

_'Hold onto those memories, the good ones. Don't get distracted.'_

She found the correct lab, knocking and awaiting invitation before entering. Professor Leyser, a middle-aged Black woman in the blue tunic of the Academic members of the Order, recognised the Doctor immediately, getting to her feet and going straight over to her. As before, she looked over the Doctor's shoulder to see if Serene was with her, and once again, she found nothing.

The scientist looked back at the Doctor, her expression darkening, and the Doctor had to fight the urge to drop her own gaze.

"What now?" Professor Leyser asked. "This isn't a social visit, is it?"

"I wish it was. I need your help. Well, Serene does."

Leyser folded her arms.

"What happened?"

"I… there was an accident. No, that's not right. There's a man, another Time Lord. He… we're enemies."

Leyser said nothing, waiting. The Doctor took a breath, feeling like this was a confession.

"He hurt her. There was an explosion, but that isn't the problem. She wasn't hurt too badly in the blast, but her device, the recall implant, it's sort of fused. She needs an expert, to see what damage might have been done."

"I see. Where is she?"

"With the doctors in the trauma unit on the Exigency Station. They're good, really good, but…" The Doctor trailed off.

Professor Leyser pulled out a stool and sat back down, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

"The first time we met, you needed my help, and I gave it to you. You repaid me by erasing all my notes, the records of the work I did, and you spirited Serene away with you. Then you lost her, and you came back for my help, and I gave it to you. Now, once more, you're here because you got her hurt, and you need me to help you again. Do you understand why I'm not pleased to see you, Doctor?"

Her words knifed through the Doctor. None of it was anything she hadn't thought herself, but it hurt to have it laid out like that in front of her.

"Yeah, I know. Trust me, if I could've stopped him, I would have."

"But he only hurt her because of you, yes? This man?"

"Yes."

There was no point in denying it, or arguing details. That was exactly why the Master had hurt Serene, because of her association with the Doctor. He might not have intended the exact nature of what had happened, but hurting, or even killing Serene, had been on his mind since the first time he saw her.

Professor Leyser met the Doctor's eyes again, her expression growing angry.

"I've known Serene almost all her life, Ever since she was a toddler. This tiny little thing, so full of energy and noise, so curious. I was still a researcher then, but it was lovely, having this little kid running around, so different to everyone, everything else here. I watched her grow up, wondered what she'd choose to do with her life, if she'd become a full Sister here, or an academic even. And then you turn up, and you whisk her away across the Universe and I never saw her again."

The Doctor swallowed every reply that came to mind. Whatever defence she could think of was unnecessary, because the Professor was entirely correct. That Serene had wanted to come with her, enthusiastically, didn't counteract all the bad things that had happened since.

"You didn't even bother to tell me that she was all right, after she'd been abducted. I managed to get some information from the Zinariyan Alliance, afterwards, but for weeks I didn't even know if she was dead or alive."

The Doctor flinched.

"It didn't even occur to you, did it? You stormed out of here, all righteous anger because you thought I'd kept information from you about your friend, never mind that we cared about her too."

The Doctor said nothing. She needed the Professor's help, and if hearing all this was what it took, then she'd keep quiet. Besides, it was true.

"So…"

Professor Leyser got up again, beginning to gather her things.

"Let's go and see her now. She won't be the girl I knew, but there's nothing I can do about that."

The TARDIS returned to the Exigency Station shortly after it had left. Despite her anger, Professor Leyser was astounded to see the ship's interior, scientific curiosity almost overriding her resentment of the Doctor.

They parked more considerately this time, out of anyone's way, then tracked down those taking care of Serene, and found that the trauma team had finished dealing with any physical injuries from the explosion. The forcefield, despite trapping her within the machinery, had actually managed to protect her a little, though the escaping energy was what had destroyed the implant.

"It's too badly fused to be removed safely," the surgeon told them. "It's no longer operational in any way, and we've ensured it won't cause any further damage. But you said it's a memory device?"

Professor Leyser showed her similar recall device, demonstrating with the wrist part how it worked.

"Memory is my specialisation," she told them.

"Well, then let's get to work," he replied.

The Doctor let them go. Serene hadn't regained consciousness yet, so there wasn't much she herself could do.

_'Being clever isn't enough, here and now,'_ she thought. _'Leave the specialists to their work, offer help when you can.'_

Part of her wanted to run off, to fill the time with her usual activities of adventure and exploration, to distract herself from worry, but she didn't want to risk missing her friend waking up, anything that she could do to help Serene's recovery.

_'There must be something you can help with, though. Try and make yourself useful.'_

The Doctor left messages with the trauma team, and at Reception so she could be contacted if needed, and went to find something good to do, while she waited for news.

/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: anything you recognise, isn't mine, etc.  
> So...what did you think? There will be more, in another story, but I'm still working on that.  
> I've noticed a lot of stories here tend to be more about the Doctor and the Master as friends, lovers or in some way close, but this story didn't work out that way; these incarnations have great chemistry, but it seems to me they provoke each other more than previous regenerations? Hence all the shoving and yelling.


End file.
